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The Nampa figurine (also known as the Nampa Image or the Nampa Doll) is a 1.5-inch (38 mm) fired clay doll found near Nampa, Idaho, in 1889. The figurine has been dyed red, possibly due to iron oxide deposition, and depicts a female figure with jewelry and clothing. The artifact has been the subject of substantial controversy over its apparent age. While scholarly consensus today holds that the doll is a hoax, initial estimates of the artifact placed its age at 2 million years old, significantly outdating any other clay artifacts and humanity's arrival in the Americas. While archeologists have debated whether the figurine was a hoax or not, the consensus is that the artifact is not 2 million years old. Archeologists George Frederick Wright, William Henry Holmes, and Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews have argued that the object descended rapidly due to a geological phenomenon or was displaced by the drilling mechanism that originally uncovered the figurine. Wright, whilst being a strong proponent of the object's validity, estimated the age in terms of thousands of years. Wright's support of the Nampa figurine's genuineness has been heavily criticized as being religiously motivated. Daniel Garrison Brinton and John W. Powell argued the artifact was a 19th-century doll made by the Pocatello Indians, with modern-day archeologists holding the belief the artifact was a hoax. Members of the Pocatello Native American tribe have also affirmed the figurine was a hoax. Due to the controversy surrounding the artifact's age, many conspiracy theories have arisen around the artifact's origin. Description The Nampa figurine is a small female figure made out of fired clay. The object is 1.5 inches (38 mm) in size and contains pieces of clay, quartz, and traces of iron oxide. The figure was found to be well worn with faint markings that may have represented clothing or jewelry around the chest and neck. The right leg of the figure was broken off. Later, a reproduction of the figurine was created by geologist Albert Allen Wright and chemist Frank Fanning Jewett, who concluded that the piece could not have been made by a novice craftsman. The scientists noted that the red coloration of the doll was possibly due to iron oxide deposition, and not the doll's original color. Both Wright and Jewett were able to replicate the color through the use of acid staining. The figurine has often been compared to the Venus of Tan-Tan. History The figurine was found in Nampa, Idaho in July 1889 by Mark A. Kurtz, a local businessman. Kurtz and his business partners were drilling for water, hitting a depth of 320 feet (98 m) while lining the bore hole as they went. Once the drill had penetrated through the basalt layer, approximately 60 feet deep, the men transitioned to a pump mechanism to remove the quicksand and ceased drilling. Following this, the drill pump brought the figure to the surface whilst removing the sand layer at 261 to 301 feet (80 to 92 m) deep. Charles Francis Adams Jr. alongside a team of archeologists were contacted to perform the initial dating of the artifact. Due to this find, in 1929, a formal archeological survey of the site was performed by Louis Schellbach with support from the Museum of the American Indian and the Heye Foundation. The figurine is now housed in the Idaho State Historical Society Museum. Artifact dating Early dating efforts used the law of superposition to date the figurine. The figure was found at a clay and sand layer in the Glenns Ferry Formation dating to the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition. The sand layer was covered by a lava flow that was estimated to be deposited during the Late Tertiary or early Quaternary period, placing the figurine at an age of 2 million years old, during the early Pleistocene age. In 1904, a U.S. Geological Survey atlas was published, affirming that the well had been dug "below the 60 feet of Quaternary material, 15 feet of basalt and 220 feet of sands with some clays". The atlas would affirm that the layers dug represented the Quaternary and Tertiary epochs. Samuel Franklin Emmons, in his assessment of the rock layers, would conclude that there was no indication that the rock layer was from the Tertiary period. Archeologist William Henry Holmes, an expert in out-of-place artifacts, stated: While it may have been brought up as reported, there remains the possibility that it was not an original inclusion under the lava. It is not impossible that an object of this character could have descended from the surface through some crevice or water course penetrating the lava beds and have been carried through deposits of creeping quicksand aided by underground waters to the spot tapped by the drill. George Frederick Wright, in 1911 and 1912, surveyed the site, ruling that the artifact's layer may be thousands of years old. Wright theorized that the rupture of Lake Bonneville and flooding Snake River Valley resulted in the region being buried in a sediment and quicksand. Soon after, volcanic eruptions formed the basalt layer, with Wright noting that the Nampa area was on the edge of the lava flow. Wright noted a similar phenomenon had occurred during the uplift of the Sierra Nevada Mountains during the beginning of the Glacial Epoch. Wright strongly contested that the artifact originated below the 60 ft deep basalt layer due to Kurtz lining the bore hole as he drilled, transitioning to a drill pump once the basalt layer had been breached. Wright's claim that the object was genuine and his flood theory have both been widely criticized by his contemporaries as pseudoarchaeology and an attempt to propagate Christian fundamentalism and creationism. In 2011, archeologist and museum curator, Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews would argue that the iron oxide responsible for staining the doll was found above the basalt layer (approximately 60 feet (18 m) feet down) and that clay balls were found close to the bedrock layer. These clay balls showed similar iron oxide staining as the figurine. Fitzpatrick-Matthews posited that this was evidence of a rapid descent of artifacts in the soil, or that the drill had push these objects deeper prior to their unearthing. The figurine is considered similar to the designs of other Upper Palaeolithic European artifacts. Controversy over validity It has been widely proposed that the figurine may have been a fake, or an attempt at a hoax. At the time of discovery, the oldest fire clay artifacts dated to 6,000 to 10,000 years old, and the oldest simple human depiction, the Venus of Tan-Tan, was only about 300,000 to 500,000 years old. Additionally, the first humans were estimated to have come to the Americas with recent findings dating between 25,000 and 27,000 years ago. Previously, the first humans were estimated to have come to the Americas only 13,000 to 13,500 years ago. Between October and November 1889, Mark Kurtz and George Frederick Wright engaged in a series of letters detailing the limitations and mechanics of .... Discover the Martin K Ettington popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Martin K Ettington books.