The Greatest Scientific Hoax of the Century.

A missing link to the human evolutionary tree has been discovered.  It was a revolutionary discovery that completely changed the way we look at our phylogenetic tree.  The new creature has been named and placed on the tree where scientists can agree where it belongs,  but it took years to complete because there was so much controversy over the new species discovered, like whether it was real or not.  The human ancestor has caused complete uproar because it was discovered in a highly religious age, creating tension between scientists and religious leaders.  The primitive creature has been determined to exist around 500,000 years ago, long before humans existed and was named Eoanthropus dawsoni, and was given the nickname “Piltdown man”.  It immediately became a worldwide phenomenon. 

Piltdown man was an extremely well thought out hoax, but the mastermind behind it is still unknown. In a quiet town in England in the early 1900s, Charles Dawson, an amateur naturalist, strolled by a quarry and discovered a skull.  He began his research and gained many followers in the scientific community because of this skull and also a few jaw bones and teeth discovered in a nearby area.  Many could not believe Piltdown man was real, so research was constantly being conducted to unveil the hoax, but Dawson became a rich and famous man from his discovery.  Eventually, long after Dawson's death, from the use of modern dating techniques, Piltdown man was named a hoax: the greatest scientific hoax of the century.  

Piltdown Man

For the Book Review assignment I have been reading "Piltdown Man and Other Hoaxes" by Jonathan Maxwell.  The main hoax discussed is Piltdown man, which was once thought to be a missing link in the evolutionary lineage of humans.

A skull was found in the English county if Sussex in 1908.  It appeared to be closely related to a human's, but the jaw appeared to be very ape-like, and its discoverer, Charle Dawson, hurried home with his find and began some research.  Over the years, Dawson gained many followers who strongly believed Piltdown man was a missing ancestor of humans.  But of course with followers comes those who deny it.  The people against Dawson ranged from the religious community to his fellow scientists who believed this discovery was too good to be true.

Many of his followers were world renowned scientists, so the oppositions against  Piltdown man began to slim, except for the Americans.  American scientists refused to believe that there was the possibility of human ancestors in Europe, but none in America.  At the time, no one knew where humans actually originated (which was in Africa), so there was much dispute among different countries because they all wanted the origin of humans to be from their homeland.  Americans believed humans originated in America, so therefore Piltdown man had to have been a hoax.

Years later, in 1953, long after Charles Dawson passed away, Piltdown man was indeed discovered to be a fraud.  It turns out, the skull of the creature was a human skull and the jaw of an orangutan that were both artificially aged.  They were dropped near each other into a gravel pit left to be discovered.

To this day, the mastermind behind this hoax remains unknown, but many believe it was the discoverer of Piltdown man, Charles Dawson, that forged this "scientific breakthrough".