Best of the Web

http://www.csicop.org/
Web site for the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and its journal, the Skeptical Inquirer. Online articles from the magazine, a newsletter, and an annotated bibliography are all useful elements of this site.

http://www.skeptic.com/
Web site for the Skeptic Society and Skeptic magazine.

http://skepdic.com/
Voluminous dictionary of terms, concepts, and claims defined and explained with a skeptical perspective, from acupuncture to zombies. Includes many of the claims discussed in this book.

http://www.skepticfriends.org/
The Web site for the aptly named Skeptic Friends Network. A series of fun one-liners about various pseudoscientific claims and, even better, a concise description of the scientific method.

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/177_11_021202/dec10354_fm.html
A brief presentation about childbed fever.

http://www.csicop.org/bibliography/home.cgi
Extensive bibliography and reviews by skeptics of numerous topics related to the occult and the paranormal, as well as examination of fringe claims, including those made about the field of archaeology.

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cardiff.htm
Chapter from Andrew White's autobiography detailing the author's experiences in upstate New York when the Cardiff Giant was discovered.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/NYCOOgiant.html
Very cool site dealing with offbeat tourist sites, here discussing the Cardiff Giant.

http://www.thecardiffgiant.com
Homepage for Scott Tribble's upcoming book, A Colossal Hoax: Foes, Fervor, and the Giant From Cardiff That Fooled America.

http://www.marvin3m.com/cardiff.php
Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum's home page. Visit to see P. T. Barnum's fake of the Cardiff Giant.

http://www.farmersmuseum.org/exhibitions/cardiff.htm
Web site of the Farmers' Museum, home to the Cardiff Giant.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/human-origins/piltdown-man/
As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, the Natural History Museum in London has an interactive guide to the Piltdown hoax.

http://home.tiac.net/~cri_a/piltdown/piltdown.html
Detailed discussion of the hoax; enormous bibliography is linked.

http://home.tiac.net/~cri_a/piltdown/readinglist.html
Piltdown bibliography with an extensive section on possible perpetrators.

http://home.tiac.net/~cri_a/piltdown/winslow.html
Presents the argument that Conan Doyle was the Piltdown "perp."

http://home.tiac.net/~cri_a/piltdown/drawhorn.html
Gerrell Drawhorn's paper presenting the argument that Arthur Smith Woodward was the perpetrator of the Piltdown hoax.

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/piltdown.htm
Web site arguing that Martin Hinton was the perpetrator of the Piltdown hoax.

http://www.geraceresearchcentre.com/
Home page of the Gerace Research Center, College of the Bahamas. The site has links to a listing of archaeological research and publications related to Bahamian archaeology, including the work of Charles Hoffman at the Long Bay site, where late Spanish artifacts have been found dating to the early voyages of Christopher Columbus.

http://www.columbusnavigation.com
An interesting site produced by Keith A. Pickering, presenting a discussion of the many possible locations of Columbus's Caribbean landfalls.

http://www.beringia.com/02/02maina9.html
The very informative Web presence of the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center, focusing on the story of Beringia.

http://instaar.colorado.edu/QGISL/bering_land_bridge/
A very cool animation of the change in the configuration of Beringia from 21,000 years ago when sea level was at its low point and the land bridge was at its maximum to the establishment of the modern coastline about 8,000 years ago.

http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/natcul/hist_e.asp
The Canadian government's official L'Anse aux Meadows Web site, with links to brief discussions of the village's founding by the Norse in the late tenth century, the Viking sagas, and the archaeological research conducted at the site that confirms definitively the site's identification as a Norse outpost in the New World five centuries before Columbus.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/vinland.html
A nice site with links to photographs of some of the diagnostic, tenth- century Norse artifacts found at the site.

http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/
This is the companion Web site for the museum exhibit Vikings, The North Atlantic Saga, produced by the Smithsonian Institution. Extremely informative and well produced, the site provides an enormous amount of information about the archaeology, history, genetics, and environment of the Norse.

http://www.cahokiamounds.com/cahokia.html
The official page of the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. View photographs, read about the archaeology of the site, and see a listing of events open to the public at the site and museum.

http://www.ua.edu/academic/museums/moundville/
Visit the Moundville site in Alabama, by some measurements second only to Cahokia among temple mound sites in terms of the size of the community-and size of the earthen pyramids.

http://www.ngeorgia.com/parks/etowah.html
Web page of the impressive Moundbuilder archaeological site, Etowah, in Georgia.

http://www.mississippian-artifacts.com/
A wonderful resource, loaded with photographs-accompanied by thoughtful discussions-of some of the fine art and craft of Mississippian Moundbuilder stone, ceramic, shell, and beadwork.

http://www.cr.nps.gov/archeology/feature/builder.htm
Lengthy discussion of Moundbuilder culture.

http://www.sos.state.mi.us/history/michrelics/index.html
Read the incredible story of the so-called Michigan Relics, on this virtual museum exhibit (the actual exhibit was hosted by the Michigan Historical Museum). The relics were clumsy fakes produced in the early 1890s to make money by taking advantage of people's curiosity concerning the ancient inhabitants of the New World.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/timaeus.htm
Complete Timaeus dialogue online.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/critias.txt
Complete Critias dialogue online.

http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/Atlantis/
Though not the most skeptical Web site, there is some valuable summary in- formation here about the lost continent. Vital statistics for the lost continent, an Atlantis history timeline, and some background on Plato are found here.

http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/rapanui.html
Especially useful for an extensive series of links to Easter Island Web sites as well as breaking news about archaeological work on the island and potential threats to the Moai as a result of recent plans to develop parts of the island.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/
PBS companion Web page to the Nova "Secrets of Easter Island" documentary.

http://barsoom.MSSS.com/education/facepage/face.html
Web page dating to 1995 presenting a discussion of the Mars Face based on the 1976 Viking Orbiter 1 photograph.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/4_6_face_release/
1998 NASA Web page revisiting the Mars Face phenomenon on the basis of new, high-resolution photographs taken by the Mars Orbiter camera.

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/extended_may2001/face/index.html
Web page presenting the May 2001 NASA press release announcing the most recent (April 2001) image of the Mars Face. The download is quite amazing, but there's not even a hint of a face.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast24may_1.htm?list540155
NASA Web page presenting a brief history of the Mars Face phenomenon, including the April 2001 photographs taken by the Mars Global Surveyor, the highest-resolution photos yet taken of the feature. Scroll down to the end of the site for James Garvin's trail map to the top of the mesa.

http://guardians.net/egypt
About as all-inclusive as you can get in a Web site devoted to as broad a topic as ancient Egyptian culture. Great graphics, terrific discussion, links to everything from the official Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities to tour groups, online catalogs of Egyptian goods, and chat groups. If you visit one Web site on Egypt, this is the one.

http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~ahm/history.htm
The University of Pennsylvania Egypt Web site. There are lots of links to Web sites on the culture of ancient Egypt, online tutorials on hieroglyphic writing, an encyclopedia of Egyptian deities, and much more.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/textindex.html
Web site on ancient Egypt produced by PBS. Features an online interview with famed Egyptologist Mark Lehner and virtual tours of the pyramids at Giza.

http://www.catchpenny.org/
Larry Orcutt's entertaining site exploring some of the supposed mysteries of ancient Egypt. "Mysteries of the Sphinx," "Pyramid Enigmas," and pharaoh's curses are explored here, all within the context of the application of the scienti?c method to the investigation of the Egypt of the pharaohs. Lots of fun and enormously informative.

http://www.lysator.liu.se/~rasmus/skepticism/dowsing.html
Fantastic and very thorough discussion-and debunking-of dowsing. There is even a brief mention of the application of dowsing in archaeology.

http://www.du.edu/~lconyer/
Check out the enormous utility of GPR in the search for buried archaeological remains without digging or ground disturbance at Lawrence B. Conyers's Web page, Ground Penetrating Radar in Archaeology. Click on the link "G.P.R. examples from around the world." GPR and other remote sensing techniques present a distinct advantage over psychic archaeology and dowsing; they actually work and their ground truth can be verified.

http://www.natcenscied.org/
Web site of the National Center for Science Education, an organization de- voted to defending the teaching of evolution in public schools. A good source for current events concerning the creation/evolution debate.

http://www.talkorigins.org/
Fantastic site devoted to the creation/evolution debate. A great place to find specific and detailed responses to creationist claims.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html
A Web page at the talkorigins site providing an enormously detailed enu- meration of the impossibility of the biblical Flood.

http://paleo.cc/paluxy/paluxy.htm
The Web site of Glen J. Kuban, probably the most knowledgeable person concerning the actual dinosaur and misidenti?ed giant human footprints at Paluxy. The claims of those few creationists who still maintain that the Paluxy mantracks are genuine are thoroughly debunked here.

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/
Official Web page of the French Ministry of Culture focusing on Chauvet Cave. The site includes a photo album, map, history, and links to Web sites devoted to other Upper Paleolithic painted caves.

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/
Splendid Web site devoted to Lascaux Cave. Take a virtual walk through the cave and gaze upon most of the major works of art.

MAYA

http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3618/mamaya.html
Web site with many links to Web pages that discuss the culture of the Maya people, both ancient and modern.

http://www.mesoweb.com/
A Web site focusing on all things Mesoamerican. Links to articles, Web sites, news excavations, and just about anything else you might want to know about Mesoamerica.

STONEHENGE/ STONE CIRCLES

http://www.stonepages.com/home.html
If you want a virtual visit to almost any megalithic site in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, or Italy, go to this website. Lots of photographs and detailed information.

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~aburnham/eng/index.htm
A photo guide to the megalithic monuments of England. May be the best place on the web for photographs of megalithic sites, aerial shots, and even audio tours.