According to Wikipedia and other articles online, the Cardiff Giant was a large gypsum sculpture created by George Hull in 1869 and "found" while he was digging a well. In a time when lots of people were actually finding bones of unusually large people, especially in Ohio, I suppose he must have wanted a piece of the action. After all, one could make good money in the late 1800's with an interesting archaeological find. People liked "freak shows" during that era. According to Wikipedia, Mr. Hull was claimed to have been an atheist, and created the sculpture as a response to an argument he had in a church about the validity of Genesis 4.
One dead giveaway for me is to see the sculpted hair. Hair quite often survives, in the case of mummified remains. If the body is decomposed down to only the bones, then no trace of the hair is usually found. Hair can sometimes survive burial if it is in the presence of brass, copper, or silver, as the oxides coming off the metals will preserve organic matter in its immediate vicinity. So if you ever find something of metal, take all the organic matter from around it and inspect it carefully. You will never know what you might find.
Interestingly, the article earlier in this blog had claims in it that putrefied flesh was found attached to the giant. So this must have been a quite elaborate hoax. However, one cannot substitute a gypsum sculpture for a real fossil and fool the specialists in the field.
Link to what Wikipedia says about the find.
Most of what is posted in this blog appear to be quite valid archaeological finds. These finds are not limited to the US. Other finds have been show to occur in the Caucasus, the Middle East, Sardinia, France, India, Africa, etc. I didn't expect a find to turn up as a hoax, but then why would I be suprised?
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