From Dienekes' I find that yet another fraud has been exposed in the field of PaleoAnthropology. The Guardian has the full story on a German anthropologist who apparently is a compulsive liar. Not only has he faked the dates of several pivitol paleo finds, it seems that the man couldn't even work his dating machine so he just guessed at the dating of artifacts and remains. Because of this scandal Anthropologists are being forced to rework there entire understanding of early human history, from 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. Because of Professor Reiner Protsch von Zieten's dates anthropologists have believed that Neanderthals coexisted with anatomically modern humans and were even able to mate. Now, this theory is being thrown out the window. The official view of early europe is going to have to be completely rewritten.

Other lies of Professor Protsch include:
That he once examined the bones of Hitler and Eva Braun.
His aristocratic title (von Zieten)
That he has an apartment in California and hangs out with Arnold and Steffi Graf

Also, apparently the man ordered the distruction of "thousands of documents lodged in the anthropology department relating to the Nazis' gruesome scientific experiments in the 1930s". His father was a Nazi MP, which may or may not have something to do with it.

This man is insane, if you ask me. But it also shows that the validation process of big finds in PaleoAnthropology needs a lot of work. To be forced to rewrite tens of thousands of years of prehistory because of one compulsive liar seems ridiculous. And this is not the first time a fraud of this magnitude has been discovered. The Piltdown man was hailed as the missing link for fifty years before they discovered that it was really the skull of a man only 600 years old and the jaw of an orangutan. The worst part about these frauds is that they just add ammunition to the evangelical Christian anti-Evolution stockpile.