The Piltdown Hoax
The Piltdown hoax remains one of the most notorious scientific frauds in history. In 1912, Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist, announced the discovery of what he claimed were the fossilized remains of a previously unknown early human in a gravel pit near Piltdown, East Sussex, England. The find included a human-like skull, an ape-like jawbone, and primitive stone tools. Dawson, alongside prominent British paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward, presented the findings to the Geological Society of London. This discovery, “Dawson’s Dawn Man”, was initially heralded as a significant missing piece in human evolutionary history. Piltdown Man was particularly significant because it seemingly supported the then-prevalent idea among British scientists that large brains developed early in human evolution, an idea not universally accepted elsewhere. At the time, there was intense national pride tied to scientific achievement, and many British scientists were eager to find evidence of early hu...