Piltdown Man

Piltdown Man was a forged fossil assemblage presented in 1912 as the remains of an ancient human ancestor. Its human-like skull and ape-like jaw were assembled from fossils later shown to belong to different species.

Charles Dawson: An English amateur archaeologist who announced the Piltdown fossils with Arthur Smith Woodward. Dawson claimed to have found the first specimen and remained central to the case.
Human evolution: The evolutionary history of humans and their extinct relatives. Piltdown was presented as evidence for an early stage in this history.
Martin Hinton: A British zoologist and museum worker whose trunk contained altered animal bones resembling some Piltdown material. His stored specimens prompted a later suspicion that he might have prepared parts of the hoax.
Peking Man: The historical name for Homo erectus fossils discovered at Zhoukoudian in China. These genuine Asian fossils complicated claims that Piltdown represented humanity’s earliest known ancestor.
Arthur Smith Woodward: A British paleontologist who described the Piltdown fossils with Charles Dawson. Woodward helped present the finds as a new human species.
Fossil forgery: The deliberate alteration or fabrication of fossil evidence to mislead scientific inquiry. Piltdown’s skull and jaw were modified and combined to create a false appearance.
Kenneth Oakley: A British geologist who used fluorine analysis to help establish the age of fossil remains. Oakley’s tests helped demonstrate that Piltdown’s parts came from different periods.
Taung Child: A fossil juvenile Australopithecus africanus skull discovered in South Africa in 1924. Its apelike features and human affinities challenged Piltdown’s proposed evolutionary pattern.
Piltdown gravel pit: A site near Piltdown village in Sussex, England, where fossil fragments attributed to Piltdown Man were reportedly found. The gravel pit supplied the setting for Dawson’s discovery claims.
Fluorine dating: A method for comparing fossil ages through fluorine accumulated from groundwater during burial. Fluorine comparisons helped show that Piltdown’s bones were not equally ancient.

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