Our knowledge of prehistoric life and cavemen would be very limited without the benefit of archaeology. Paleontologists and archaeologists often work together to dig up our collective past. But sometimes the sites they excavate are quite controversial.
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These days, there's still conflict between archaeology and cultural or religious beliefs. This Buddha at Jehanabad, Pakistan, carved in the 6th century, was vandalized in 2007 by Islamic fundamentalists who believed it idolatrous.
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When well diggers came across this stony 10-foot figure in the soil of a farm in Cardiff, N.Y., in 1869, many came to believe that the "Cardiff Giant" was the petrified corpse of a prehistoric giant. It turned out the giant was actually a gypsum carving -- a hoax perpetrated by a man named George Hull.
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The construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River flooded and destroyed not only population centers but also several archaeological sites in the region. Next, we'll see a famous ancient capital that faces a similar danger.
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The ruins of Persepolis, a great capital of the ancient Persian Empire, rest in modern-day Iran. The Sivand Dam was scheduled to begin construction in 2006 but has been delayed several times due to fears that it could damage the site.
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The British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the 18th-dynasty Egyptian king Tutankhamun in 1922. Of the many questions surrounding this discovery, one of the most popular is the legend of the "mummy's curse," which alleges that several strange coincidences, including the death of Lord Carnarvon, the dig's financier, and others, are the supernatural vengeance of the pharaoh whose grave was disturbed.
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This is the golden death mask of Tutankhamun. Another controversy that followed the discovery of King Tut's tomb concerned the circumstances of the young pharaoh's death. Some archaeologists believed a hole in Tutankhamun's skull pointed to murder, but now it seems more likely that King Tut died from the combination of a leg wound and several diseases, including malaria.
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In 1985, a mammoth-bone tool found at the Bluefish Caves site in the Yukon Territory tested thousands of years older than the arrival of the "Clovis people," who were supposedly the first human inhabitants of the American continents (circa 9500 BC).
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An archaeological site in the Calico Mountains of California added to the pre-Clovis people controversy. Sharp stones that may have been early tools date nearly 200,000 years back. Click ahead for more controversies about early dwellers of North America.
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The Islamic shrine known as the Dome of the Rock rests right on top of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which is a site with historical and religious significance in the Jewish tradition. The fact that (at least) two religions hold the site in sacred veneration has made proper archaeological investigations difficult.
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Many Christians believe an artifact known as the Shroud of Turin -- an old piece of fabric bearing what looks like the bloody silhouette of a man -- to be the authentic burial dressing of Jesus of Nazareth. At the same time, many scientists dismiss the relic as a medieval hoax. Carbon dating has shown parts of the cloth to be less than a thousand years old, but more recent critics have questioned the methods of the original test.
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Ancient cave paintings like these are perhaps the oldest indicators of complex human thought. Cave paintings at the La Marche site in Western France have intrigued researchers for decades, but their authenticity has been called into question.
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In 2008, the Warka archaeological site in Iraq was suffering from a lack of proper protection. Because the government was unable to pay a sufficient archaeological guard force, the site was left vulnerable to looters.
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Evidence of the past lies always underneath and around us; sometimes we find it even when we're not looking. In 2010, workers accidentally discovered the remains of a centuries-old wooden ship beneath ground zero in New York.
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