News

Unfair Park News Home Schutze Buzz Ask a Mexican Archives Search Dallas Observer Flipbook Weekly Newsletter Get Mobile

Calendar Home Top Picks Submit an Event Events Newsletter Get Mobile Crave

Music Home DC9 at Night Concert Calendar Bars and Clubs Submit an Event Music Newsletter Get Mobile H2O Box Hunt FLOAT Summer Cut

Restaurants Home City of Ate Cheap Eats Menus Happy Hours Best Of Deals Crave Dining Newsletter Get Mobile Restaurant Ads

Arts Home Mixmaster Theater Arts Newsletter Get Mobile Entertainment Ads

Film Home Showtimes Film Festivals Film Newsletter Get Mobile Free Stuff

Best Of Home 2011 2010 2009 2008 Best Of Newsletter Get Mobile Best Of Ads

Promotions Home Promotional Events Street Team Free Stuff Promotions Newsletter Get Mobile Deals Crave FLOAT H2O Box Hunt Summer Cut

Post an Ad Jobs Real Estate Advertiser Index Deals Deals Newsletter Virtual Career Fair Great Expectations DFW

Pin It

Romeo's head

A would-be Indiana Jones reopens the debate over who got to America first

A A A Comments (1) By Christine Biederman Thursday, Aug 26 1999

...continued from page 6

Mark Graham

Archaeologist Romeo Hristov believes a small terra-cotta head dug from a hill in Mexico is evidence that Europeans traveled to Central America before the Spanish conquest.

More About

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Weekly Newsletter: Our weekly feature stories, movie reviews, calendar picks and more - minus the newsprint and sent directly to your inbox.

Meanwhile, his academic career is headed nowhere. "I always want an academic career," he says. "I never have any question that I can be real good. Top of the hill.

"Of course, I am making so much troubles about me that it will be kind of a surprise if happens. But I am trying." Again, Hristov compares himself to Gary Cooper in High Noon, the lonely hero who knows what he must do. "Just write about me that I am man who believe in what he is doing, man who is not afraid to take risk, and man who is only interested in doing the scholar[ly] thing in face of almost impossible odds."

Check out this week's featured ad for News

DFWRentHome.com

View Ad View Website

More Ads >>

Get the Weekly Newsletter

Our weekly feature stories, movie reviews, calendar picks and more - minus the newsprint and sent directly to your inbox.

Email
to Friend

Write to
Editor

Print
Article

Romeo H. Hristov 09/17/2010 5:05:00 AM

About six months before the publication of the paper on the Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca’s head in Ancient Mesoamerica, an article on my research was published by Christine Biederman, an occasional contributor to Dallas Observer (a free newspaper distributed in Dallas/Forth Worth area, see: http://www.dallasobserver.com/1999-08-26/news/romeo-s-head/6/). Since I like to laugh (including to myself), the pathetic and rather distorted presentation of my research did not bother me at all; as matter of fact, I found the article’s intellectual limitations and Mrs. Biederman’s obsession with imitating the authoritative style of better known journalists quite entertaining. However, a significant number of errors and misquotations in the article decidedly may benefit from clarification. In order to keep this note at reasonable length, below are included only two of the many examples: In p. 6 of the electronic edition Mrs. Biederman wrote: “Other scholars, writing in academic organs with names like American Antiquarian, picked up where Wanchope left off. ‘Doctrinaire diffusionists are a menace to sound archaeological theory,’ wrote one”. In the first place, American Antiquarian was a journal that ceased to exist in 1880, that is, almost a century before Wauchope’s book was published; secondly, it has been an relatively obscure publication and not an “academic organ”; thirdly, the name of the cited author is Wauchope and not “Wanchope”; fourthly, the correct citation is “Doctrinaire diffusionism is…” instead of “Doctrinaire diffusionists are…” as Mrs. Bierderman wrote. Fifthly, the cited paragraph was published in a journal named American Antiquity, which indeed is an academic organ. It takes considerable talent, even as “an occasional contributor” to a free local newspaper to make five mistakes in two short sentences, especially when citing publications that have been previously discussed, and copies of which have been provided. On the personal side, it is worthy mentioning that although I have an admitted weakness for American western movies, since my early grades in the elementary school I definitively do not identify with them in any of the ways attributed to me by Mrs. Biederman.

Romeo's head

A would-be Indiana Jones reopens the debate over who got to America first

Related Content

More About

Like this Story?

DFWRentHome.com

View Ad View Website

Get the Weekly Newsletter

Most Popular Stories

Observer on Facebook

Slideshows»

Best of Dallas

2011 - People & Places

Special Reports

Now Click This