The Piltdown Hoax

1.     In the early 1900s, Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist, discovered a pile of gravel in the small English town of Piltdown which contained the bones and tools of a Neanderthal—the first that had been found in Britain.  The bone which attracted the most attention was a jawbone fragment, which mostly resembled an ape’s, and a piece of a skull.  However, the few teeth that were still attached to the jawbone were short and blunt, more like a human’s, and a reconstruction of the skull showed that it was shaped like a cross between an ape’s and a human’s, since the cranium was more human-like in size and shape.  The primate these bones belonged to was named the “Piltdown Man”, after the town they were found in, and was said to be the “missing link” between apes and humans.  The British at the time craved some kind of proof that they too had Neanderthal remains somewhere in their country, like so many others.  They were excited at the Piltdown findings and were very hasty about validating their authenticity.  However, in later years, more accurate ways of dating fossilized remains were discovered, and the Piltdown findings were tested using these methods.  To the surprise and dismay of many scientists who had believed in the findings, many of the pieces collected from the Piltdown site were found to be only 100,000 years old at most, compared to the millions of years that Dawson had claimed.  Furthermore, the fragment of jawbone was found to be less than 100 years old; it had been stained to look aged, and the teeth had been filed down to appear more human-like.

The primary suspects of the Piltdown hoax are Charles Dawson, his assistant Arthur Woodward, and surprisingly, Arthur Conan Doyle.  Prior to the hoax, Doyle had fallen out of the scientific community for his beliefs in spiritualism.  His notions of spirit photography had been laughed at by other scientists, who claimed that his spirit photographs were not evidence at all.  It is suspected that he wanted to get even with these scientists by having them pass false, manufactured evidence as real, in order to demonstrate that they could not recognize evidence whether it was real or not.  Doyle’s novel, “The Lost World”, includes several methods and processes which match those of the Piltdown Hoax, as well.

Dawson and Woodward, since they were the ones who initially found the site in Piltdown, are the suspects who have received the most scrutiny.  After his death, Dawson was proven to have been a fraud and a swindler before Piltdown; some of his previous archaeological discoveries had also been fakes.  In the NOVA transcript, it’s stated that Dawson was looking for some kind of archaeological discovery which he could publicize to build academic credibility for himself.  By finding the remains of the “Earliest Englishman”, he would be able to gain this credibility.  Although Woodward is also suspected, he continued to dig at the Piltdown site for many years after Dawson had died, which might have been a sign he had no knowledge of the hoax.

The hoax was a terrible embarrassment to the British scientific community, who had embraced its truth for so long, and for the scientists who had based their studies on it.  These false findings had led them down pointless paths of study, using “facts” of human evolution that turned out to be false, and many major discoveries of bones and artifacts were ignored due to these falsehoods.  The event also caused some distrust of scientists among the general community, suggesting that they could not be trusted when it came to the larger issues of human evolution, or any other major issue for that matter.

2.     The two most prominent motives for this hoax were to get revenge, and to become famous.  These are two very human desires, and unfortunately they both managed to tarnish the reputation of the scientific community to an extent.  The suspects in this hoax wanted something for themselves, whether it was seeing their enemies defeated or becoming famous, for the sake of having it; it had nothing to do with increasing the knowledge of our origins.  And because the perpetrators were successful, scientists worked with false information for over 40 years.  Not only were the false discoveries detrimental at the time they were made, they affected scientific studies for many years afterwards.

The hoaxers were not the only ones at fault, however.  At that time, Neanderthal remains had been found in countries such as Germany, Spain, and France, but none had been found in Britain.  Once the Piltdown man was discovered, Britain’s scientific community was more than willing to validate the find, as it would show their country had just as much to do with the evolution of man as the others.  Once it seemed like there was sufficient evidence to conclude the bones and artifacts were authentic, the matter was settled.  The eagerness of the scientific community to establish their own place in the evolutionary timeline caused them to overlook several things which might have discredited the Piltdown Man.

3.     Throughout the years, there was still some doubt about the authenticity of the Piltdown Man, though it was never widely discussed.  However, in the early 1950s, Professor Kenneth Oakley used fluorine analysis to conduct further dating studies on the bones found at Piltdown. 

As a bone sits buried in the earth, it will absorb the fluorine found in groundwater; the longer it stays buried, the more fluorine it will incorporate.  In result, bones found in the same site should contain the same amount of fluorine, given they absorbed it at the same rate, and can be dated against each other using their fluorine levels.  He found that a human skull unearthed at the site dated further back than he piece of jawbone (which would soon be discovered to have belonged to an orangutan).  In reality, the jawbone was less than 100 years old.

Following Oakley’s discovery, a full analysis was launched on the Piltdown man and the accompanying bones.  Using microscopes, scientists discovered the teeth on the jawbone, as well as a canine tooth supposedly belonging to the jawbone, had been filed down to resemble human teeth.  Also, pieces of the jawbone which would have made it clear it belonged to an ape had been broken off.

 

4.     As long as scientific study is conducted by humans, I don’t think the human factor can ever be totally removed.  Even if most of the scientific community is honest, and their only motive is to make discoveries for the betterment of mankind, there will always be one of two people who don’t make that their highest priority.  And even if all of them are honest, there is still the possibility of honest error. 

If there was a way to remove the human factor from science, yet leave the integrity and the passion which scientists have intact, I would support it.  The thing that drives scientists to make discoveries and pursue their studies for so long is the very thing which causes them to make mistakes—passion, emotion, the desire for something greater.  Only the perpetrators of the Piltdown Hoax pursued that desire in the wrong way.  As long as this desire is tied to what compels scientific study, I think the benefits of the human factor ultimately outweigh the drawbacks.

5.     A life lesson to take away from this event would be: don’t be too eager to accept something as truth just because you want it to be true, and ignore everything which tells you it’s false.  According to the NOVA transcript, the “desire to find the earliest Englishman had blinded the scientific establishment”.  Scientists were willing to accept the Piltdown Man as genuine not because the proof was irrefutable, but because it validated something they wanted to be true.  In other words, they had come to a conclusion first, and were looking for evidence to support that conclusion only.  Not only does this not follow the scientific method, it does not follow common sense.  Critical thinking requires the thinker to take all the facts into account, and make decisions based on those facts as a whole, not to make a decision and then find facts which support that decision.