Piltdown Man
Videos
The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological fraud in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. Although doubts about Piltdown Man's authenticit
Group portrait of the Piltdown skull being examined. Back row (from left): F. O. Barlow, G. Elliot Smith, Charles Dawson, Arthur Smith Woodward. Front row: A. S. Underwood, Arthur Keith, W. P. Pycraft, and Ray Lankester. The portrait on the wall is of Charles Darwin. Painting by John Cooke, 1915.
Piltdown Man
Piltdown Man skull reconstruction
The Piltdown Man memorial stone.
Charles Dawson
Videos
Charles Dawson was a British amateur archaeologist who claimed to have made a number of archaeological and palaeontological discoveries that were later exposed as frauds. These forgeries included the
Piltdown Man
…was only definitively exposed in 1953. An extensive scientific review in 2016 established that the hoax had been perpetrated by amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson, apparently in pursuit of recognition from other archaeologists. In 1912, Dawson claimed that he had discovered the "missing link" between early apes…
A replica of the Piltdown Man skull.
The Piltdown Man jaw (B) compared to the jaws of a female orangutan (A) and a modern man (C).
Three CT scans of the Piltdown Man's canine that display the root of the tooth which was compared to apes (a), the loss of enamel (b & c), and dotted lines that indicate how the undamaged root would appear (b & c).