Charles Dawson's Piltdown Man- A Human Cranium and An Ape's Jaw.

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In 1912, at a meeting of the London Geological society where several renowned scientists were present including the famous Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward, an English paleontologist and a renowned world expert in fossil fish, Mr. Charles Dawson who was a lawyer and amateur antiquarian narrates the account of his famous discovery, one that would shock both the scientific world and the theological world alike. He told his story as narrated in the book the White Lantern:

"...years ago I was trudging along a farm-road close to Piltdown commons, Fletching, when I noticed that the road had been mended with some peculiar brown flints not usual in the district. On enquiry I was astonished to learn that they were dug from a gravel-bed on the farm, and shortly afterwards I visited the place l, where two laborers were at work... "

Charles Dawson
And with that came a spark that roused a whole new level of curiosity and skepticism in the scientific community and the birth of a veritable link between the human cranium and the jaw of an ape that would put an end to all doubts about the origin of man, the Piltdown Man.

...and for many years a painting titled discussing the Piltdown Man hung on the staircase of the society's headquarters.

"...besides the human remains, we found two small broken pieces of a molar tooth of a rather early Pliocene type of elephant, also a much-rolled cusp of a molar mastodon, portions of two teeth of Hippopotamus, and two molar teeth of a Pleistocene beaver."

Dawson narrated that after he came upon the fragments of a skullcap, he had gotten in touch with Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward, who gave the bones a careful and sedulous examination and had considered them so important, that he himself had joined the search for more bones, and they did uncover more bones: bits of deer antlers, the tooth of a Pleistocene horse, and all specimens were mineralized with iron oxide.

But there was a problem and this settled a few scientists, The Piltdown cranium did not fit with the Piltdown jaw and the discrepancy gave more cause for alarm since both had been excavated at the same level and the molars were flat even though the jaw resembled an ape's. But how strange it would be, that a prehistoric man had left only his skullcap while a prehistoric ape left only its jaw, at the same site! Hence they were concluded to belong to the same beast.

replica model of piltdown man skull

Another specimen was uncovered few months later. Father Teilhard de Chardin who was as interested in the subject as anyone else had noticed a canine tooth in a dump head on the gravel. Another spark was ignited, especially at the Geological society. The tooth was quite large and appeared to be the tooth of an old man while the jaw was that of a young man. Where then did the tooth come from?

Piltdown Man was accepted into the evolutionary tree amidst many doubts, even skepticism but, the fact that fossil remains taken from Pleistocene gravel, much of it excavated under the supervision of the punctilious Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward of the British museum stood against all doubts.

Dr. Smith Woodward

There, there, we have it. Mr. Charles Dawson must have felt proud of himself, perhaps even a braggadocio, to have uncovered the ultimate proof that man defended from his ape ancestors. now to our tents shall we?

The excitement or prominence was not to last. In 1953, the skull came in the custody of Dr. Kenneth Oakley, who subjected it to a fluorine test since buried bones tend to take in Fluorine from water in the earth, and the longer the burial, the more the fluorine.

Results of Dr. Oakley's tests both astonished and bemused the scientific community more than clarify. Conclusion from the fluorine test showed that the jaw and the skullcap indeed belonged to each other, but they held less fluorine than animal bones taken from the same stratum. There was a contradiction so clear and so aggravated the doctor that he was rumored to have said to his colleague in a loud, chafed tone:

"This thing is bogus!"

After Dr. Oakley's examination, a few months later, Oxford anthropologist J. S. Wiener after a series of ruffling thoughts that the Piltdown man was a fake, confided in Sir Wilfred Le Gros Clark at Oxford. Then he obtained a chimpanzee Jaw and filed down the molars. Alas, the teeth almost took the shape of a human teeth. But that was not enough evidence. He dipped the chimpanzee jaw in permanganate until it acquired a suitable brownish hue and when it was dried, according to the White Lantern, placed it on sir Wilfrid's desk and said, "I got this out of the collections. What do you suppose its is?" And sir Wilfrid, who knew at once exclaimed, "you can't mean it!"

A conference was held with Dr. Oakley and after that, the Piltdown Man's world began to fall apart and along side it, Mr. Charles Dawson.

The evidence could not be ignored, and more evidence as evincing the forgery began to show up.

The distinctively human molars had been flattened, artificially and closer inspection revealed that their surfaces were on a different plane, indicating that the forger had altered his grip when he moved from flattening one tooth to the next. The turbinal bones were of indeterminate origin and the canine tooth uncovered by Father Teilhard de Chardin was X-rayed and discovered to be a young tooth that had been ground down until its purple chamber was exposed, an effect which would not happen to a real, living tooth.

As if it was not enough, more evidence flooded in and more reasons to doubt the infamous Piltdown Man:

Chemical tests showed a nitrogen concentration of approximately 3.9 percent in the jaw, 1.4 percent in the skullcap. And there was the fluorine discrepancy which could no be ignored.

Physics, of course was called upon to give the ultimate evidence against the Piltdown Man:

Bones taken from the Piltdown Commons were given a newly developed test for uranium salts. The bones, if naturally had come to decline at their ultimate resting place, the Geiger counter should have clicked along at a more or less the same speed, but according to Dr. Oakley, it gave a wide spectrum, so disparate and radioactive that it gave its own picture when left on a photographic plate.

And the Great Wall finally crumbled. The Piltdown man was a farce: the skullcap was old, speculatively Neolithic and the jaw was recent, and belonged to a female ape, an orangutan perhaps. And of the eighteen specimen collected by Dawson and Smith Woodward, ten were proven fraudulent, the rest eight, treated with low esteem.

skull of a female orangutan
The farce was dealt a great blow to the scientific community as many scientists regarded it as both an embarrassment and a waste of time. But for other, it at least did some good. Public interest in anthropology was stimulated and a reminder for the need of accurate data and improved analytical procedures were set.

Even Dr. Louis Leakey had commented on the issue of the forgery, saying that when he had visited the British museum in 1933, he was escorted to the basement where the Piltdown fossils were kept, they were placed on the tables, alongside their reproductions:

"...i was not allowed to handle the originals in any way, but merely to look at them and satisfy myself that the cast were really good replicas. It is my belief now that it was under these conditions that all visiting scientists were allowed to examine the Piltdown specimens..."

Charles Dawson had died in 1916 and hence could not be called to defend his position as regard the farce, but there were no other suspects. According to Dutch geologist Von Koenigswald,:

"...it is certainly not nice to accuse a dead man who cannot defend himself, but everything points quite clearly to his responsibility for the forgery."

However, we are left with more questions than answers:Who was responsible? What was the motive? Was there a missing link? And was it all really a farce? Perhaps we are looking at it the wrong way and more examinations are needed than was conducted?

I will leave you to answer such questions for yourself. As to the Piltdown Man, History has taken her course and the blow would forever leave a scar on the heart of the scientific community.