The Archeologist in the Cocoon

The Archeologist in the Cocoon is the eleventh episode of the eighth season of Bones.
== Synopsis ==
The team investigates the murder of a well-known archeologist with a questionable reputation, who came upon a career-defining discovery right before his death. 
==Summary==
A cocooned skeleton is found in a tree, and Hodgins’ high hopes that they’ve found a Mothman are quickly dashed. The victim is human, and the car that’s crashed nearby is set up to make the death look like an accident, with the driver thrown into the tree… but the blood soaked into the car seats tells a different story. The victim is identified as James Sutton, famed adventurer and archaeologist, as well as an author of cheesy, sensationalist books that mostly existed to get people to buy bogus artifacts from him – thus financing his expeditions. It transpires, however, that Sutton may have made a genuinely significant discovery – human bones, thousands of years old, that show Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens living side by side in the same cave, co-habiting… history’s first known mixed-race couple. Brennan and Dr. Edison fight over custody of the ancient bones… which are not only a scientific curiosity, but also pose a millennia-old murder mystery. Things turn odd when it turns out that Sutton’s biggest customer for his fake artifacts is a Texas oilman who is a diehard Creationist and a major funder of a Creationist museum.
Meanwhile, Brennan is frustrated that baby Christine isn’t interested in peek-a-boo, which leads Booth and Sweets to worry that Brennan is being overcompetitive and may place too much pressure on Christine as she grows up.
The curator of the Creationist museum funded James Sutton's explorations, and it was discovered that he bought rare historical artifacts such as fossilized dinosaur eggs and ancient carvings so that he could either lock them away or destroy them, because they conflicted with his religious views.
The prime suspect was James Sutton's newly widowed wife's brother, who Booth thought might have killed him in order to restore honor to his family. His family, which live in Russia, were extremely traditional and violently disapproved of a member of their family marrying an outsider. However, the real culprit was his publisher, who felt betrayed by the fact that Sutton had published an academically-serious article of a discovery in a scientific journal, with no mention of her, and for free. She killed him by attacking him with a book-end, which sliced through his armpit and caused him to bleed out and die in under a minute. 
As for the discovered neanderthal and human remains that Bones and Edison fought for, what looked to be a violent tribal conflict instead turned out to be a hate crime: a Homo sapien mother, Neanderthal father, and three-year-old daughter of both were outcasts from both Homo sapien and Neanderthal tribes, and were attacked by a single Homo sapien interloper. The interloper threw a spear at the father, who went down; the mother, who had been grinding acorns, attacked the interloper with her grinding stone. She was struck down, and her larynx was crushed; in the time she attacked, it gave the father time to reach for his hatchet and strike the interloper, killing him instantly. However, both parents were mortally wounded; the father crawled over to cradle the mother as he died, and the mother died shortly after. The three-year-old was too young to survive on her own, and starved to death: her last action was to crawl over to her parents before she died.
Bones and Edison finally managed to collaborate, with Bones toning down her hyper-competitive impulse long enough to let Edison take primary credit for his findings. Additionally, in the interest of giving Sutton's unborn child something about his father, she let James Sutton's name be put in a secondary credit to Edison's for the findings. 
==Cast==
===Main Cast===
*Temperance Brennan - Emily Deschanel
*Seeley Booth - David Boreanaz
*Jack Hodgins - T.J Thyne
*Angela Montenegro - Michaela Conlin
*Camille Saroyan - Tamara Taylor
*Lance Sweets - John Francis Daley
===Intern of the Week===
*Clark Edison - Eugene Byrd
===Recurring Cast===
*Christine Booth - Ali and Susanne Hartman
===Guest Cast===
*Diana Malkin - Amy Yasbeck
*Artur Tovah - Zoran Korach
*Marina Sutton - Anya Monzikova
*Dwayne Wilson - Gary Grubbs
*Parachute Guy - Joe Williamson
==Featured Music==
* TBA
==Notes==
*The figurine Wilson bought from Sutton is a Venus figurine.
*The familial structure of the archeological remains in this episode may be based on the family of Denisovan 11, a thirteen year old girl with a neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. Her remains were found in Denisova Cave, and date to 90 thousand years ago.
Category:Episodes
Category:Season 8