The so-called “Piltdown Man” is an archaeological discovery of the remains of a skull and jaw excavated in 1912 from a grave in Piltdown, a village in East Sussex. They were presented as a “missing link” – a transition between man and ape and as a fossil previously unknown to science. The world was then amazed by this new discovery.
A part of the skull, several teeth and jaws were discovered. The remains were given the Latin name – Eoanthropus dawsoni.
The only problem? It was about fraud! There was no “missing link”. The Piltdown Man wasn’t real.
The archaeological hoax of the century
Scientists immediately questioned this discovery. It has been discussed and debated for decades, but no one has been able to neither dispute nor confirm it with certainty.
The finding thus remained controversial until 1953, when, thanks to new technology, it was definitively declared a hoax! It turned out to be made of the lower jaw of an orangutan and the skull of a modern man, writes Allday.com.
The hoax is believed to have been masterminded by the “discoverer” of the Piltdown Man – Charles Dawson, an amateur geologist and lawyer who was among the members of the expedition that “discovered” the fossil. It was he who gathered several distinguished scientists to study the remains he found. He died in 1916, long before the findings were disputed.
The “Piltdown Hoax” is probably the most famous of the archaeological hoaxes. The discovery has been debated for over 40 years and, although Donson was the prime suspect, his responsibility has never been proven with certainty.
A few other possible creators of the fraud were suggested, but to this day it is not known who organized everything.
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