In Search of Piltdown Man

The case of the Piltdown Man is the most notorious hoax in the history of palaeoanthropology.

Early in 1912, Charles Dawson, a respected Sussex solicitor and keen amateur archaeologist showed palaeontologist Arthur Smith Woodward at the Natural History Museum in London two skull fragments he had found in a gravel pit near the village of Piltdown, Sussex. The pair instigated a search for further remain, and in December that year, in front of a packed meeting of the Royal Society, they announced the discovery of the long-sought 'missing link' between apes and modern humans.

Piltdown Man, formally known as Eoanthropus dawsoni ('Dawson's dawn man') was a scientific sensation. It was the subject of hundreds of articles in scientific journals. Books and indeed entire careers were devoted to its study. Then, in 1953, forty-one years after its discovery, it was exposed as a forgery.

Further investigations revealed the full complexity of the hoax, suggesting that the hoaxer had a good knowledge of multiple scientific disciplines. But who were they, what were their motives, and how did the hoax go undetected for so long?

This 19k-word short read traces the history of Piltdown Man from its supposed discovery to its exposure as a fraud. It explains why it was so important to the theories of the leading palaeoanthropologists of the day and how it hampered the acceptance of important discoveries that were being made in Africa.

The last section of the book reviews the cases against the long list of suspects, which range from Dawson to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as many top figures of the British scientific establishment.

The result is a fascinating insight into the often fractious world of academia in Britain and elsewhere during the early twentieth century and the possible motives of the hoaxer who fooled them for so long.

This work is No. 4 in of the In Search of series of eBook Short Reads.

*** This and the other 11 short reads in the In search of series are available in a single collection: Prehistoric Investigations 2: In search of ***