Piltdown Man Hoax!

Piltdown man was discovered in the early 1900’s and fooled scientists for more then 40 years. “It was a terrible distraction” as one scientist, states. It was 1912 near the southern English town of Louis in the village of Piltdown, when Charles Dawson was digging in a gravel pit and found something amazing… Dawson had claimed to have found a piece of an ancient human skull! Charles Dawson invited England’s leading geologist, Arthur Smith Woodward of the Natural History Museum, to verify that the skull had human features. Charles Dawson also invited French paleontologist Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to join in on the findings. They had located certain stone tools and animal fossils, which were deemed “sensational finds”. Charles Dawson found a jawbone that apparently was connected to the skull found. The jaw contained teeth that had been worn down, a wear pattern, worn flat, that shows the same for humans!

In December 1912, Woodward made the announcement of the discovery. His findings had a huge impact on the scientific community, proving that England contained ancient human fossils just like the great countries of Asia and Africa did. This finding also had a huge impact on the community as it was considered the “holy grail” of findings, the missing link of humans and apes.

Woodward’s prestige erased any doubts of Piltdown man, even though he only specialized in fish fossils. Also supporting Woodward was Arthur Keith, to which Woodward’s findings supported his personal theory of human evolution: that humans develop big brains before they walk upright. Woodward also had a volunteer, Martin Hinton that disliked his boss Woodward, but participated in helping him uncover more fossils in the following years which silenced all remaining skeptics.

Something wasn’t right though. After Dawson had died in 1916, no more bones were being found. Also, Fossils were being found all over the world and were showing that human ancestors living after Piltdown man were less human NOT more human.

The turning point came after World War 2 an advent of new technology that allowed for scientists to roughly date artifacts.  This concept was the measuring of the fluoride content of fossils. In 1949 scientists conducted a fluorine test on Piltdown man, the results amazed them the results were young, 100,000 years ago.

But in 1953 a full scale analysis with better dating methods was used on the Piltdown man fossil… and the hoax was about to unravel. The jaw…dated back to just a 100 years! Under extensive analysis scientists saw that the fossils were cut, and artificially stained. The teeth, under a microscope, showed that they had been filled down… to a desired shape. Scientists now see that pieces of the skull and jaw had been removed so that they could be placed together. All evidence pointed to the forgery of Piltdown man fossils, who would do this? Why?

“It can happen…that wasn’t fair… but now we know it could happen and therefore we’re alert to that possibility.”

After this hoax was unveiled, I believe many scientists were slightly heart broken; two reasons, one reason, being because the fossils turned out to be altered, and secondly that someone from the scientific community would try to fool everyone, including other scientists.

 All humans contain faults; no one is perfect. The human faults that come into play here are status and jealously. The idea that your name will be associated with the “Holy Grail” of human and ape linkage, could make some people act in certain ways, or lie to obtain a certain name or association with that finding. As spoken in the video, jealously between countries that pushed for a finding whether it was real or fake. The idea that great countries were proving the existence of ancient human ancestors and England had proven nothing yet.

Observation: The skull and jawbone were observed in 1953 (and previous, but this was the “extensive” look) and went under an extensive full-scale analysis.

Hypothesis: I believe since the results of fluoride tests in 1949 dated the skull from 100,000 years ago, scientists wanted to get to the bottom of this finding, and produced another date from their fluorine test that dated the skull only 100 years back. Now the scientists needed to figure out what was going on!

Experiment: Through fluorine dating, microscopic looks and closer observation the testing proved flaws in the finding: filed down teeth, artificially stained fossils and chiseled and filed artifacts.

Conclusion: The Piltdown Man is a forgery. A hoax.

We cannot remove human factors from science. Scientists want to be associated with a great finding that will challenge ideas and methods already standing. Scientists will always be involved in the work they do, the work they create and the outcome that proceeds. With this being said, this is WHY we cannot remove the human factors from science. Human factors challenge everything; human factors stand for what they believe in. Human factors push people to prove one thing or another. Unfortunately in this case, the scientists were pushed to far and lied about their findings. What about other scientists that are pushed to find new ways that will not falsify evidence? These scientists show the hard work, dedication and extreme personal pride in what they truly love and with that, make magnificent findings. 

Even if information comes from a reliable source or not, always look at the analysis it underwent. I do realize though, that if it is from an unverified source, not to trust it until I have all the facts, or that the item being questioned as been verified elsewhere by a reliable source.