Piltdown Man
- June 1912: A skull was found at
Piltdown in southern England in 1912
- It was called Piltdown Man
- Discovered by
Charles Dawson
- December 1912: Dawson displayed skull reconstruction at Geological Society meeting
- 1916: Charles Dawson died
- 1925: Francis H. Edmonds reported geology error, but nobody listened
- 1943: Test for fluorine content of fossils proposed
- 1949: Fluorine test revealed that Piltdown bones are recent
- July 1953: Dr. J.S. Weiner finally suspects hoax
- November 1953: Team at British Museum announces proof of hoax
- Examination of fossil's teeth produced obvious evidence of fakery
- Sir Kenneth Oakley looks for origin of Piltdown bones
- Skull: Human, medieval, about 600 years old
- Jawbone: Orangutan, from Sarawak(?), about 500 years old
- This hominid did not fit into the pattern
- Attempts to fit it in set the science back decades
- Some scientists at the time rejected it
- By 1950 Piltdown was largely ignored
- Who Did It?
- To this day the identity of the perpetrator is not certain
- But - a 2003 paper by Brian Gardiner points to Martin Hinton
