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A tongue-in-cheek letter, purportedly sent by the Paleoanthropology Division of the Smithsonian Institute in response to the submission of a prehistoric hominid skull, has been entertaining netizens since 1994: A story this good should be true. But it's not. This piece is naught but a charming bit of humorous fiction, as none of the details checks out. Harvey Rowe of the Smithsonian doesn't exist. (Which is indeed our loss. What a talent for gentle sarcasm!) Moreover, the Smithsonian doesn't have an antiquities department. If you call up and ask to speak to the mythical Harvey Rowe, the operator will put you through either to Anthropology or the Smithsonian's public affairs officer. Either way, you'll be greeted with There's nobody here by that name. You won't be the first such caller, either. Far from it, the Smithsonian is heartily sick of being asked about Harvey Rowe. There's also no hopeful backyard paleontologist busily excavating the land around his clothesline and implacably sending specimen after bogus specimen off to the Smithsonian. That too is fabrication. There is a Harvey Rowe, but not of the Smithsonian. In the spring of 1994, while a graduate student at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, Harvey Rowe wrote what has become known as the Smithsonian Barbie letter. In a fit of creativity, he tossed off this imagined response to a backyard digger, then shared his writing effort with a small circle of friends. One of those friends sent the piece to others, and thus Smithsonian Barbie entered into the world of e-lore.
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