How the Piltdown Man skull became the greatest hoax in anthropology

In the early 20th century, people were fascinated with finding the 'missing link' in human evolution because it was believed that such a discovery would provide evidence for the theory of evolution and help to fill in gaps in the scientific understanding of human origins.

The theory of evolution, first proposed by Charles Darwin in the mid-19th century, had gained widespread acceptance among the scientific community by the early 20th century.

However, there was still much to be learned about the details of human evolution: particularly about the transition, 'the link', from apes to humans.

Finding this 'missing link' was seen as an important way to bridge this gap in knowledge and provide tangible evidence for the theory of evolution.

In addition, it was believed that finding the missing link would help to answer fundamental questions about the nature of humanity and our place in the natural world.

As the story goes, in 1911 Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist and solicitor, was given a fragment of a skull by a workman at a gravel pit in Piltdown, Sussex, England.

Dawson, suspecting that it was potentially a significant discovery, continued to search the site and found additional fragments.

In 1912, he enlisted the help of Arthur Smith Woodward, a paleontologist at the British Museum, to help him continue his excavations.

Together, they claimed to have found more skull fragments, a jawbone, teeth, and primitive tools, which they believed belonged to what appeared to be the remains of a previously unknown hominid species: the supposed 'missing link'.

The two men brought their findings to the attention of the scientific community at the Geological Society of London in December 1912, which is when Dawson claimed that the bones were at least 500,000 years old.

He argued that the remains were from a transitional stage in human evolution, and specifically a point in time when the brain had grown in size while the jaw had remained primitive.

The Piltdown Man was then formally named Eoanthropus dawsoni, meaning 'Dawson's dawn man', in honor of its discoverer, Charles Dawson.

The discovery, which became known as the Piltdown Man, was widely celebrated and quickly regarded as one of the most important finds in the history of human evolution.

An artist called John Cooke was commissioned to reconstruct the Piltdown Man's skull in 1913, an image that was widely circulated and added to the discovery’s perceived legitimacy.

Prominent anatomist, Sir Arthur Keith, became one of the most vocal supporters of the Piltdown Man discovery, using it to support his theory that the development of a large brain preceded other human evolutionary traits.

Most importantly, at the time, the discovery also bolstered British national pride by suggesting that England was the cradle of early human evolution.

However, some scientists were skeptical from the beginning, noting the inconsistencies between the human-like skull and the ape-like jaw.

Further doubts about the Piltdown Man began to emerge in the 1920s.

The age of the bones was called into question, and some scientists suggested that they might be much younger than originally thought.

Others noted that the jaw and the skull appeared to belong to different species of hominids. German anatomist Franz Weidenreich was one of the scientists who examined the Piltdown fossils in 1923 and openly suggested the skull was a combination of a modern human and the jaw of an ape.

Other scientists noted that the teeth appeared to be substantially different to the skull.

Despite these criticisms, the Piltdown Man continued to be held up as evidence of human evolution for several decades.

It was not until the 1950s that the hoax was finally exposed. 

In 1953, new dating techniques revealed that the bones were only a few hundred years old, not hundreds of thousands. 

Two systems of absolute dating were used to expose the Piltdown Man hoax. They were called fluorine dating and radiocarbon dating.

Fluorine dating was a relatively new method at the time, and it had been further developed by Kenneth Oakley.

It was a method of determining the relative age of bones by measuring the amount of fluorine they contain.

The more fluorine a bone contains, the longer it has been buried.

The breakthrough came when scientists Kenneth Oakley, Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, and Joseph Weiner applied fluorine dating, which showed that the bones were much younger than claimed.

Radiocarbon dating is another absolute dating technique that measures the amount of carbon-14 in a sample to determine its age.

Later, radiocarbon dating confirmed that both the skull and jawbone were modern, less than 1,000 years old.

Together, these absolute dating techniques helped to conclusively expose the Piltdown Man as a fraud and a forgery, and not the 'missing link' that had been claimed.

The skull was revealed to be a modern human cranium, no more than 600 years old.

In addition, nitrogen content analysis was used to assess the organic composition of the bones, which showed that the jawbone belonged to a young orangutan.

The jawbone had been intentionally modified to hide its origins. It was carefully broken near the midline and the teeth had been filed down to look more human.

In addition, the skull bone fragments and the modified orangutan jawbone were also artificially stained with iron and chromic acid to give them the appearance of antiquity and to match the color of the local gravel.

The exact origin of the orangutan jawbone was not specified in the search results, but it is clear that it was not native to the Piltdown area.

The findings were published in the journal Nature on November 21, 1953, and finally put an end to the hoax.

By this time, over a dozen other hominid fossils, including Java Man and Peking Man, had also been found across Asia and Africa, which directly contradicted the Piltdown Man's characteristics and location.

The exact identity of the person responsible for the Piltdown Man hoax remains a mystery to this day.

The forgery was so elaborate and sophisticated that some believed it had to have been the work of more than one individual.

However, several names have been suggested as possible perpetrators of the hoax.

The most obvious is the original discoverer of the Piltdown Man, Charles Dawson.

However, other prominent scientists of the time, such as Arthur Smith Woodward and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, have been suggested as well.

De Chardin was a Jesuit priest who had participated in the excavations, but later distanced himself from the findings, which added to suspicions about his role in the hoax.

Over time, people have even pointed the finger at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

He happened to be living in Sussex at the time of the discovery and was known to be interested in archaeology.

However, there is no concrete evidence to support any of these claims.

There was a major analysis of the Piltdown Man hoax conducted in 2016 which concluded that Charles Dawson was likely the sole perpetrator.

DNA analysis revealed that both the canine and molar from the Piltdown sites came from a single orangutan, likely from Borneo.

Also, the study found that the bones and teeth were filled with Piltdown gravel and dental putty and showed similar patterns of chemical staining and artificial abrasion, indicating deliberate fabrication.

Ultimately, these findings reinforced the conclusion that Dawson was the one that orchestrated the hoax and misled the scientific community for decades.

Regardless of who was responsible, the Piltdown Man hoax was a cautionary tale about the dangers of wishful thinking and scientific fraud.

It had persisted for over 40 years, making it one of the longest-lasting and most impactful scientific frauds in history.

The revelation of the hoax led to a period of skepticism and critically reevaluated methods within the anthropological and paleontological sciences.

It also led to widespread discussions about scientific integrity and the processes of peer review.

Unfortunately, the early acceptance of the fraud meant that it hindered the recognition of other genuine human ancestor fossils, such as Australopithecus africanus, which had been discovered by Raymond Dart in 1924.

Ultimately, the Piltdown Man case became a textbook example in scientific circles of the importance of skepticism and the need for multiple lines of evidence before accepting extraordinary claims.

While the hoax set back the study of human evolution for decades, it ultimately helped to strengthen the field by forcing scientists to develop more rigorous methods of investigation and analysis.