The biggest discovery of the 1900s was a fake
The British were thrilled when in 1912 an amateur archaeologist claimed to have found ‘the Missing Link’ – proof of Darwin’s evolutionary theory. It took 40 years for further research to reveal that the discovery of Piltdown Man was just too good to be tr
There are more scientists gathered in the Geological Society’s London residence than can comfortably be accommodated. All of the UK’s most prominent minds are trying to get a closer look at the skull being displayed in the centre of the room.
The bone fragments clearly have characteristics that are both human and ape-like. The large room is full of whispers, debating whether this skull provides the answer to the great question of the origin of man.
The centre of attention this evening is the man addressing the crowd: a stocky, bald-headed man with a pair of vivid eyes and a large moustache. Amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson – the proud discoverer of the bones – has just finished his account of how he found them.
“Any questions?” Dawson asks, and he is blown over by a storm of voices. One question in particular is on everybody’s mind: how old is this ‘Piltdown
Man’ to whom the skull belonged? Dawson clears his throat.
“The discovery of the skull was made in a gravel layer from the midPleistocene Transition. That is to say, the Piltdown Man roamed the Earth more than 500,000 years ago.”
Dawson lured expert
Seven months previously, on a morning in May 1912, Charles Dawson had arrived unannounced to see Arthur Smith Woodward, head of the British Museum's geological department.
Surrounded by dusty bookshelves and glass cabinets full of bones, the two men stood in Woodward’s dark dusty office as Dawson explained that he had come from Sussex to introduce his latest find, which was sitting on the table between them, wrapped in grey paper.
“What is the Homo heidelbergensis compared to this?” Dawson bragged, as he slowly unwrapped his trophy.
The paper revealed three fragments of a massive skull. The bones were thick
and sturdy – almost ape-like. Dawson had made his discovery in a gravel pit near the village of Piltdown in Sussex, between London and the UK’s south coast. He was, he said, convinced the area had more bones.
Would Woodward – the nation’s most prominent fossil expert – like to participate in this unique excavation? A few weeks later, Woodward and Dawson were together in the green hills of Sussex, sweating as they watched the sun go down, and agreeing to have one last bit of digging before they ended another day of excavation.
“We were examining some untouched gravel at the bottom of the pit,” Woodward later recalled, “when we both saw half a human jaw protrude in front of the pickaxe. That was how we found the most sensational part of the fossil we were looking for.”
Word of a major discovery spread quickly through academic circles.
“I have thought of nothing but the amazing fossil all day,” Oxford professor and the nation’s most prominent zoologist E.R. Lankester wrote in a letter to Woodward, continuing: “Do not hesitate to ask the authorities for – say – 500 pounds to secure the right to carry out future excavations. I am convinced the entire family is buried in the gravel pit – complete with fibulas!”
Many academics were euphoric, believing that Britain had made a sensational fossil find. The mighty empire was to have a place among the most important archaeological and palaeontological nations.
“I left the museum convinced that a very important discovery had been made in the most unlikely of all places: Sussex.” wrote well-respected anatomist Arthur Keith after having examined the new find himself. “I am delighted that England wins this round.”
“A new human species”
Finally came 18 December 1912 – the day that all of England had been waiting for. At the Geological Society’s annual meeting in London, the sensational find was to be presented to the public for the first time, and both Dawson and Woodward were waiting anxiously.
Many of the nation’s most distinguished people were in the audience, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. The question of
ZOOLOGIST LANKASTER ON THE PILTDOWN MAN I am convinced that the entire family is buried in the gravel pit – complete with fibulas.
the origin of mankind was a sensitive one for the Church, and the bishop would not miss seeing the most recent discovery by supporters of Darwin’s theories.
“Never has the conference room been so crowded,” wrote a reporter from the Saturday Review. “The question of our relation with monkeys appeals to all kinds of people. Only very few subjects have caused such a bitter dispute.”
In spite of the disapproving gaze of an archbishop, the meeting was a huge success. All the speakers emphasised that Dawson had made a discovery of huge historical importance.
Even the cautious Woodward was euphoric, saying: “Our discovery convincingly confirms all the scientific theories!”
The next day, The Times of London summed up the meeting with its headline: “The first evidence of a new human species”. The discovery of Piltdown Man was the sensation of the century.
Tourists tried to find bones
The following year, the excavation site opened to the public, and over the summer of 1913 the village of Piltdown became a major tourist attraction, the area invaded by buses full of visitors from London.
The local Sussex Daily News described how a local guide “pointed out the site where the skull had been discovered, and the group carefully examined the area. Many in the group took the opportunity to make their own excavation, but unfortunately, no additional skulls were found.”
The local area was quick to capitalise on the archaeological tourism. The town hall was opened up to provide tea for the visitors, a replica of the skull was made available for tourists to examine more closely, and postcards of Piltdown subjects were soon available to buy. The fossil rush peaked in 1915. Meanwhile a grandiose painting of Dawson, Woodward, Keith and Lankester was hung on the walls of London’s famous Royal Institution in Westminster.
The skull itself was placed in the big main hall of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, a building which, with its vaults and columns, resemble a mighty cathedral to science. It was an appropriate setting for this Holy Grail of British natural science, and the Piltdown Man was exhibited in full glory along with a new handbook on fossils written by Woodward.
Lankester and Keith also published their own books about the amazing find, claiming that British scientists had found “the highly debated Missing Link – the most spectacular and important fossil ever discovered”.
Charles Dawson died in the middle of all the excitement in 1916, at the age of 52. In a newspaper orbituary, anatomist Arthur Keith characterised Dawson as “a shining example of the group of men who drive British science forward: the intelligent, observant amateur.”
Main characters leave the scene
Following Dawson’s death, Woodward continued the research into Piltdown Man. He took up residence near the original excavation site, and spent all the summer months over the next 20 years carrying out new excavations – without making one single find.
Once his age and disease made further excavation impossible, he sat down to write a book about Piltdown Man. He worked on it through the outbreak of World War II and the arrival of German war-planes above the green hills of Sussex, Woodward tirelessly continued his work. On the evening of 1 September 1944, as the Germans were preparing to launch the first V2 rocket attacks on London, he finally finished his book. The very next morning, Arthur Smith Woodward was found dead in his bed.
Suspicion is aroused
Woodward’s book, The Earliest Englishman, was published four years later. It caused new interest in Piltdown Man, especially as new bone dating methods had been developed over the 36 years that had passed since the discovery. So in 1949, Piltdown Man was taken from the Natural History Museum to be subjected to fluorine dating.
The results were shocking. Piltdown Man seemed to be not nearly as old as its position in the gravel layers of Piltdown had suggested. The dating showed an age of around 50,000 years – which was a time when modern man already existed. So Piltdown Man could not be “the
Missing Link”, nor the first human. He was just some primitive relic of the past.
Among the readers of Arthur Smith Woodward’s book was a young anthropologist and anatomist Joseph Weiner from the University of Oxford. During a conference about prehistoric humans in 1953, he saw the famous skull of the Piltdown Man, and subsequently made a thorough examination of the bones.
Much to his surprise, Weiner discovered that the teeth of the jaw were shining white under the reddish-brown surface. And the teeth did not seem to have been worn down by chewing, but rather filed down. The teeth’s masticating surfaces were surprisingly even – and did not match each other.
As an experiment, Weiner tried to make a similar fossil himself by filing down a tooth from a monkey and colouring it. The result was almost identical to the Piltdown Man’s tooth.
Weiner called a colleague at the Natural History Museum, saying “Get your most powerful microscope and examine Piltdown Man’s teeth thoroughly. Can you find signs of modern processing?”
An hour later, the shocked colleague called Weiner back: “I am certain. The discoloration is artificial!”
Revelation upon revelation followed, as the story of Piltdown Man began to fall apart. The discoloration of the teeth was almost certainly ordinary, brown wall paint. And the jaw itself proved to come from an orang-utan or a chimpanzee.
Skull from the Middle Ages
Now the headlines on the front pages were different: “The Fraud of the Century” and “Missing Link Bluff Shocks Science”.
The Times of London tried to preserve remaining English dignity by insisting that the “skull fragments are the remains of real prehistoric people”.
But in 1959, the last belief in Piltdown Man was quashed. Thorough carbon-14 dating finally determined the bones’ correct age: the skull was from the 1300s, the jaw even younger, and probably from a Bornean orang-utan. In other words, this coveted ‘Earliest Englishman’ was part medieval man and part Asian ape.
After the fall of Piltdown Man, the next question was who had faked it, and who else knew? Weiner was convinced that Dawson was guilty. He approached the Sussex Archaeological Society in efforts to learn more about the area’s famous archaeologist. To his surprise, Weiner found out that Dawson had been very unpopular among local colleagues. One archaeologist explained that this was because Dawson had repeatedly stolen other people’s work. There were claims that one of Dawson’s major works had been copied from a known historian.
And even more pertinently, the locals suspected that Dawson had repeatedly manipulated archaeological finds to make them look older.
Dawson faked Piltdown man
In London, Weiner tracked down one of Dawson’s old friends, who revealed that he had twice visited Dawson’s office unannounced and had found the amateur archaeologist once colouring a piece of flint, and then painting a bone. The friend had not dared say anything at the time; Dawson was a well-reputed archaeologist with famous respected scientist friends such as Sir Arthur Smith Woodward.
But further research revealed that over the years Dawson had fabricated statues, flint weapons, Stone Age boats, and Roman horseshoes.
Weiner never found out precisely why Dawson forged the Piltdown Man and then presumably buried it for him to find with Woodward. Most likely the amateur archaeologist was driven by vanity: unlike his brothers, Dawson had never been able to go to university and realise his dream of becoming a scientist. Dawson would apparently do anything – including committing theft and fraud – to earn recognition and a name in British history books. But with the truth now out, he is remembered instead as one of science’s greatest fakers.