Piltdown Man

The McGregor reconstruction, featuring a nasal and upper canine traditionally excluded in the Smith Woodward reconstruction of 1913.

## Statistics

### Diet

Herbivorous

The Piltdown Man (*Eoanthropus*) is a dubious genus of hominid that lived in East Sussex during the Middle Pleistocene.

## History

—The end of Sir Arthur Keith's speech on July 23, 1938 during the memorial stone ceremony
At the Geological Society of London meeting on December 18, 1912, Charles Dawson alleged that a workman at Piltdown had found and given him a cranial fragment 4 years earlier, stating that they had arrived just before he had and cracked open the fossil due to their belief that it was a fossil coconut. On other visits, Dawson 'discovered' more fragments and lent them to Arthur Smith Woodward, who accompanied Dawson due to his interest in the site and working together from June-Septembeer of 1912. Dawson, by himself, found more of the skull and broken mandible. The skull was found in 1908, the only to be found in situ, with most other elements recovered from the spoil heaps of the gravel pit. At said meeting, Woodward presented a reconstruction showing how it was similar to *Homo sapiens* in many ways, except for the occiput and the 2/3 of a modern cranial capacity. Except for two derived molars, the jaw was almost indistinguishable from a young chimpanzee. Woodward suggested that it was an intermediary form of apes and *Homo*, and confirmed the notion that modernity arose first in the neurocranium.

Woodward's interpretation had strong retaliation. The Royal College of Surgeons Professor (now Sir) Arthur Keith used casts of the same cranium to create a completely different reconstruction, one that bore massive resemblance to modern humans in the brain and features, which he called *Homo piltdownensis*. Otto Schoetensack considered the fossil legit, as discoverer of Mauer it fit his hypothesis. With Woodward, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin participated in excavation. Woodward's reconstruction had ape-like canines, controversial, with Woodward, Dawson and de Chardin beginning a search for the canines in August 1913. De Chardin found a perfectly-fitting canine, and moved back to France within several days and thus taking no further role. Woodward thought that the tooth perfectly corresponds with apes, expecting this to dispel disputes. Keith rebutted by saying that human molars are built for side-to-side chewing, and that the molar of this specimen would prevent chewing like this. The canine not being any higher than the molars to explain the wear on the molars. Grafton Elliot Smith sided with Woodward at the next meeting, and the dispute ended Keith's "long friendship".

David Waterston (as early as 1913) and Marcellin Boule (1915) concluded that the cranium was of a human and the jaw of an ape. Gerrit Miller concluded that the jaw was of a fossil ape that he called *Pan vet*. Friedrich would call the jaw *Boreopithecus*. Franz Weidenreich (1923) confirmed the sentiment of the first two, confirming the jaw as that of an orangutan. Dawson (1915) claimed to have discovered 3 more cranial fragments at Sheffield Park two miles from the original finds that he called Piltdown II. Woodward attempted to find this location, which failed, with the site never being identified and largely undocumented. Five months after August 1916 (when Dawson died), Woodward presented the finds and implied he knew the discovery location. Henry Fairfield Osborn (1921) examined the original material and thought they were of the same individual "without question", and that Piltdown II "were exactly those which we should have selected to confirm the comparison with the original type". Piltdown II was confirmation for many that the original was authentic, but the odds of finding the same species in such a short time were thought slim. Keith conceded for Piltdown II, but still had doubts.

### Forgery

—John Evangelist Walsh in a 1999 documentary

From its inception, the Piltdown discovery had garnered skepticism. Miler (1915) stated that "deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the hazards of deposition in so breaking the fossils as to give free scope to individual judgment in fitting the parts together". Until being found a fraud in 1953 and confirmed in 2016, many considered this specimen to represent a strange offshoot lineage that was inconsistent with many other finds. This brought rise to many modes of classification. In November 1953, Kenneth Page Oakley, Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark and Joseph Weiner gathered evidence for *Time* magazine to prove that Piltdown was fake and a composite of three taxa, The mandible appeared aged by staining methods in an iron solution and chromic acid, with the teeth filed down to suit a more humanlike diet as observed by filing marks revealed by microscopy. The cranium was that of a 500-year-old medieval person with a small brain (or possibly the reworked crania of 2-3 individuals), an the jaw was that of an orangutan with chimpanzee teeth. This forgery succeeded because it confirmed the notion that the large brain predated most modern morphology and omnivory. It is thought that nationalism and racism also played a role in the amount of people whoa accepted the find. Piltdown satisfied the expectations of Europeans who wanted humanity's origins to lie within their borders.

Dawson, de Chardin, Keith, Martin A,C. Hinton, Horace de Vere Cole and Arthur Conan Doyle are all suspects for the forgery. However, Dawson as the forager is supported by much evidence, as he is notorious for having created a series of archeological hoaxes within two decades of Piltdown. Miles Russel, archeologist, determined that at least 38 of his specimens were fake. Among this include *Plagiaulax dawsoni*, "shadow figures" on the Hastings Castle walls, a hafted stone axe, a Bexhill boat, Pevensey bricks, Lavant Caves contents, a "Roman" statuette from Neauport Park, the Brighton "Toad in the Hole", the English Channel sea serpent, the Bulverhythe Hammer, a "Chinese" bronze vase, the Uckfield Horseshoe and the Lewes Prick Spur. In his publications, most are plagiarized and have naive referencing. Russell determined that Piltdown seemed to be the culmination of his work. Harry Morris, friend of Dawson, acquired a flint from the gravel pit, suspecting artificial aging to defraud, becoming very suspicious of Dawson for many years although never discrediting him. This is possibly due to it being a argument against the eolith theory, which Morris supported.

Prof. Adrian Lister stated that "some people [Miles Russell] have suggested" a second "fraudster" that hoped to discredit Dawson by exposing his frauds anonymously . Russell suggested that the "cricket bat" fossil elephant bone from the site was so crudely made that it may have been planted to cast doubt. By planting evidence of prehistoric cricket matches, they hoped to discredit Dawson. Others went to do the same, by planting the (obviously) fraudulent Maresfield Map, the Ashburnham Dial, and the Piltdown Palaeolith. However, the "cricket bat" was accepted, though it aroused many suspicions and helped in exposing the fake years later. In 2016, an eight year-long review of the scenario was published. Multiple specimens bore the same application of staining, packing crevices with local gravel and the addition of teeth and matrix with dental putty. The morphology and genetics of the teeth from both sites show that they were from the same orangutan. This all points to the same forger, with Dawson being the only person associated with Piltdown II. They did not rule out that somebody else may have provided the forgeries, but ruled out suspects such as de Chardin and Doyle based on the skill and knowledge of the forge jobs and their reflected biological concepts.

Stephen Jay Gould thought that de Chardin and Dawson conspired, since de Chardin had traveled to Africa where one anomalous find had been "found" and had lived in the Wealden area since the earliest Piltdown finds. Others think is is undoubtedly innocent. Hinton left a trunk of animal bones and teeth in the storage of the Natural History Museum that was opened in 1970 and found that they were stained and altered similarly to the Piltdown Man. Philip Tobias thought that Keith helped Dawson, evidenced by inconsistencies in his statements and actions. Other investigations also suggest that Dawson had accomplices. Milner believes that Doyle is guilty on the premise that one of his favourite psychics has been debunked among other plausible motives. In *The Lost World*, he allegedly lays clues that cryptically refer to the hoax. Samuel Rosenberg (1974) suggests that his writing contains clues that may link him to the fraud. Recent research suggests that this is not true, though accomplices cannot be confirmed at this time.

Chris Stringer notes that Doyle was known to have played gold at the Piltdown site and to have given Dawson a lift in his car. However, Doyle was a busy man that did not have time for hoaxes. He believes that these are simple coincidences, and that Dawson links to the forgeries the strongest. Dawson himself was very ambitious and craved recognition and a membership of the Royal Society, so he had created an important fake to be seen as a professional.

## Classification

 File:Piltdown skull reconstruction only.png
In 1912, the Piltdown Man was called the "missing link", but lost its validity before the discovery of the Taung Child and the Peking Man. Even when it was exposed, little was changed about evolutionary models because the specimen had always been questioned. However, the same was not true of earlier work, as it had very much affected research after discovery. Additionally, it led scientists to believe that the brain became derived before anything else. Australopithecine discoveries were ignored because of the Piltdown find. 250+ papers were written about the fossil, and it was very popular. Cases such as Piltdown was used by Clarence Darrow in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial about the teaching of evolution in schools. Darrow died in 1938, 15 years before it was found a fraud. Shortly before the fraud was confirmed in 1952, the Piltdown Man was used by Scientologists to tote their beliefs. They stated that this phase of our ancestry held a subconscious effect on people, which is triggered by biting, hiding the teeth/mouth and/or early familial issues; this appears to be based on the large jaw of this specimen, and is not considered true today. It and Nebraska are used by Creationists to try and reveal dishonesty in paleontology, which is often rebutted by stating that the specimen was revealed fraudulent by paleontologists themselves. In November 2003, the Natural History Museum held a 50th anniversary exhibition centered around the exposure of Piltdown. Today, the Piltdown Man is a symbol of scientific racism, nationalism and sexism on paleoanthropology. For example, newspapers used Piltdown in attempt to confirm racist ideology. This was amplified by the fossil being called the "earliest Englishman". Europeans and Americans were more skeptical. Woodward suggested that the individual may have been female, but the press still called them a male, except for the *Daily Express* (who only did so to mock the suffragette movement that they were critical of).

## Synonyms

* *Homo sapiens*, *Pan* and *Pongo*
* *Boreopithecus*
* *Pan vet*
* *Homo piltdownensis*
* *Homo dawsoni*
* *Eoanthropus*
* *Homo-aproscopinus (Eurasianicus) piltdownensis*
* *Homo sapiens (Eurasianicus) piltdownensis*
* *Proanthropus piltdownensis*

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www2.clarku.edu/faculty/djoyce/piltdown/map\_expose/pilt\_man\_RiseAndFall.html
2. ↑ https://gizmodo.com/piltdown-man-was-the-work-of-a-single-forger-study-say-1785051187
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown\_Man
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://www.persee.fr/doc/bmsap\_0037-8984\_1948\_num\_9\_1\_2828