EAST HADDAM, Conn. - Archaeologists have begun digging up the 200-year-old graves of a slave family in hopes of separating fact from fiction in the legend of "the black Paul Bunyan."

The dig has the blessing of more than a dozen descendants of Venture Smith who believe science can finally lend credence to the tales they have heard all their lives about the fabulous feats of strength that helped the lumberjack slave win his freedom.

Standing 6-foot-1 by his own account and weighing more than 300 pounds according to local lore, Smith is said to have carried a nine-pound ax and split seven cords of wood each day. His biography describes him carrying a barrel of molasses on his shoulders for two miles and hauling hundreds of pounds of salt.

Smith's story became one of the nation's first slave narratives in 1798 and is regarded by scholars as one of the most important such works. But slave biographies — particularly those told to writers, as Smith's story was — were sometimes embellished.

MADISON, Wis., July 26 — Sipping on a bottle of water and holding a book about the history and future of Islam, Kevin Barrett ticked off a few examples of what he saw as evidence that the Sept. 11 attacks had been an “inside job.”

As children zoomed by on tricycles and shot basketballs at a community center near his home, Mr. Barrett, 47, described how some news orgainzations (the French daily newspaper Figaro and Radio France International, in fact) had reported that an agent from the Central Intelligence Agency visited with Osama bin Laden two months before the attacks. He also said fires could not have caused the collapse of the World Trade Center towers at free-fall speed, as reported by the special Sept. 11 commission. “The 9/11 report will be universally reviled as a sham and a cover-up very soon,” said Mr. Barrett, who has been a teacher’s assistant or lecturer on Islam, African literature and other subjects at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, since 1996. “The 9/11 commission has its conspiracy theory, and we have ours.”

Mr. Barrett’s views, which he described on a conservative radio talk show in June, have outraged some Wisconsin legislators and generated a fierce debate about academic freedom on a campus long known as a haven for progressive ideologies and student activism.

“They apparently have no limits to what can be taught in the classroom,” Representative Steve Nass said of the university’s decision to allow Mr. Barrett to teach a class this fall titled “Islam: Religion and Culture.”

Life in the Iron Age may have been nasty, brutish and short but people still found time to style their hair and polish their fingernails -- and that was just the men. These are the findings of scientists who have been examining the latest preserved prehistoric bodies to emerge from Ireland's peat bogs -- the first to be found in Europe for 20 years.

One of the bodies, churned up by a peat-cutting machine at Clonycavan near Dublin in 2003, had raised Mohawk-style hair, held in place with gel imported from abroad.

The other, unearthed three months later and 25 miles away in Oldcroghan by workmen digging a ditch, had perfectly manicured fingernails.

"I think the message I'm getting is that although they were living in a different time, a different culture, eating different things, living in a different way, people are people -- they're the same in their thinking," said Rolly Read, head of conservation at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.

Read is one of a team of experts from Britain and Ireland who carried out an 18-month examination of the 2,300-year-old corpses and whose findings form the basis of "Kingship & Sacrifice," a major new exhibition at the museum.

While the last two centuries have seen hundreds of bog bodies recovered from northern Europe's wetlands -- where they were preserved by the unique chemical composition of the peat -- many were not examined in detail because techniques to further preserve them had not been perfected.

Read said the latest finds had yielded precious insights into Iron Age life.

For example, the hair product used by Clonycavan Man was a gel made of plant oil and pine resin imported from southwestern France or Spain, showing trade between Ireland and southern Europe was taking place almost two-and-a-half millennia ago.

"We've been able to apply techniques that weren't available back in 1984 so it's a chance to actually look at aspects of Iron Age people that haven't been explored before," Read said.

Archeologists have always puzzled over why the bodies ended up in peat bogs and why so many of them show signs of violent death, with much debate about whether they were executed for crimes or ritually slain as human sacrifices.

Both Clonycavan Man and Oldcroghan Man -- who were in their 20s when they died -- met grisly ends, the latter in particular bearing the scars of horrific torture, including having his nipples cut almost through.

Like several other bog bodies, Oldcroghan Man had been beheaded. Other examples, such as Denmark's famous Tollund Man, discovered in 1950, still had the rope used to strangle them around their necks.

Manicured fingernails and evidence of good diet -- not to mention Clonycavan Man's taste for imported cosmetics -- seem to indicate that many of those who ended up in the bogs were from the upper classes.

California joined the ranks of the National Football League and Major League Baseball on Monday, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and first lady Maria Shriver announced the creation of a hall of fame to honor great Californians.

The first 13 inductees into the California Hall of Fame -- the newest addition to the California Museum of History, Women and the Arts -- will be Cesar Chavez, Walt Disney, Amelia Earhart, Clint Eastwood, architect Frank Gehry, the Hearst family, AIDS researcher Dr. David Ho, tennis star Billie Jean King, conservationist John Muir, the Packard family, Ronald Reagan, astronaut Sally Ride and author Alice Walker. A formal induction ceremony is planned for Dec. 6.

"The first lady began this idea to showcase that California is a leading place of innovation and creativity," said Shriver spokesman Ryan Jimenez.

Museum spokeswoman Claudia French said the inductees were chosen through the input of the museum's staff and board of trustees, the California Arts Council, Shriver and Schwarzenegger's offices, the state librarian, state historian and state archivist. The governor had the final say in approving all inductees. French said people from many different disciplines were considered in an attempt to show the broad array of talent in the state.

"These unique people are people who really transcended their field and their area of expertise to make an impact on California and the world," French said.

Additional influential Californians will be inducted every year. French said the museum is considering setting up an Internet system to allow Californians from all over the state to give their input for future inductions.

The Hall of Fame is sponsored by Bank of America, which contributed $400,000 to the project. "We wanted to work in partnership with the first lady and her vision for bringing the museum to life," said bank spokesman Michael Chee. Bank of America did not play a role in choosing the inductees.

The museum, located at 1020 O St. in Sacramento, will place a prominent exhibit of the California Hall of Fame at its entrance.