The Piltdown Hoax!

 In early 1900’s England, an amatuer archaeologist, Charles Dawson claimed to have found remains of an ancient human skull in the little town of Piltdown.  Acclaimed geologist, Arthur Smith Woodward, and paleontologist Father Teilhard de Chardin joined Dawson in studying the fossils.  Together they studied and announced the findings of what seemed like a human jaw and other parts of a human skull that seemed to date back about a million year.  They based this information off of animal fossils that could help date surrounding remains.  The piece of ancient human jaw bone they seemed to discover supported the idea of a human creature with remaining qualities of an ape.  During the time of discovery, scientists had already found ancient human remains in France, Germany, and parts of Asia, but definitely not England which may have urged English scientists to push the idea that these ancient humans could have also survived in England.  After their announcement to the scientific world, they began receiving backup and support from credible people like England’s top anatomist, Arthur Keethe.  He theorized the idea that humans developed big brains before walking upright on two feet.  The Piltdown Man discovery supported his theories and it was a huge discovery in the scientific community!

  After new technology developed, the Piltdown Man was proven to be a hoax.  The teeth of the jaw had been filed down and the jaw had been dyed darker.  After more research, scientists discovered that the Piltdown skull was not ancient at all but only less than one hundred years olds and it wasn’t even human! It was a female orangutan.  Because this huge discovery was proven to be forged, there were many suspects.  Charles Dawson was the first subject.  Scientists believed it was him who faked the skull findings because he was only an amateur at the time, he wanted credibility and to make a name for himself in the scientific community.  He was also later discovered to have forged at least half a dozen other findings.  There were a lot of red flags with Dawson, but could he have done it on his own? People ruled out Woodward and Father Teilhard because neither of them had evidence against them.   People also suspected the anatomist, Arthur Keeth.  Piltdown Man would have been the perfect evidence to support his theory, which was later proven wrong.  Then prime suspect number three came to life, Martin Hinton.  Nearly a century after the Piltdown Man was discovered, Hinton came to life as a suspect because of his strong dislike of his boss and physical evidence that showed he was known to tamper with bones.

I find it interesting how human nature plays a big part in the Piltdown Hoax from beginning to end.  Whoever forged the skull pieces clearly allowed human thoughts to get in the way of real science.  They had human motives.  The suspect clearly wanted to make themselves feel better by either making themselves look good or someone else look bad, it was all about ego.  This hoax was a big learning process for future scientists.  This created a big gape of distrust in the scientific community.  Archeologists, paleontologists, geologists, and many other scientists have to go through a series of steps to get a theory fully supported.

When the fraud was revealed, it brought the scientific community together in a way.  Scientists had to deepen the process and had to come up with new ways to study ancient artifacts.  This fraud led to more research into human history and how we developed.  For instance, when anatomist Arthur Keethe theorized that humans developed a bigger brain before walking upright on two feet, scientists discovered this was wrong and actually the other way around.

I don’t think it’s possible to remove the “human factor” from science because scientists are human.  There have been many cases of forgery and ego getting in the way of scientists working together for the benefit of a theory or hypothesis.  It is impossible to tell humans not to be humans.  But looking in a more positive light, keeping the “human factor” in science allows scientists to be passionate about their research which is when we normally get the best results.

The Piltdown man was presented to some of the smartest people of its time and they were all fooled.  This just reminds me that seeing is not believing and that I can’t believe everything I see and hear.  Whoever forged the Piltdown Man let their ego get in the way.  Every human is human.