Piltdown Hoax

The “Piltdown Hoax” was great phenomenon for over 40 years.  It all begin one day during the early 1900s at Barkham Manor in Piltdown, England.  A laborer was digging and came upon a strange piece of skull, shocked by his findings he gave the piece of skull to a man named Charles Dawson who was an amateur archaeologist.  To Dawson the skull appeared “thick and primitive” which could have meant great things for the people of England.  During that time Germany and other parts of Europe were finding pieces of bone for creatures that were the earliest humans that they called Neanderthals, and when the laborer found this piece of Skull England was not the only one without early humans anymore.  Britain was constantly trying to prove themselves to be the best and with this new discovery and because of Charles Dawson’s interpretation, they believed they were the birth place for the very first human.  Charles Dawson did not release his interpretation to the public immediately after he had received the piece of skull, he did further digging and research with a man named Sir Arthur Smith Woodward.  They found a jaw bone that looked like the shape of an Ape’s with teeth of a human while they were on their journey.  Between the skull and the jawbone, Sir Arthur Smith Woodward and Charles Dawson came to announce the very first human, the “Piltdown Man”(“the earliest English man”).  The discovery of the “Piltdown Man” enthralled everyone who believed in science and was placed in the Natural History Museum.  In 1953, 40 years after the announcement of the “Piltdown Man”, it was deemed fake by Kenneth Oakley, who worked in the museum.  

Kenneth Oakley used a a type of relative dating known as fluorine analysis to prove that the “Piltdown Man” was, in fact, a hoax.  Oakley deemed that the jaw was more than likely that of an orangutan’s and the teeth were filed to look like a human’s.  Both the skull and the jaw bone were stained to look as if they had been aged.  In conclusion, all of the findings in Piltdown, England had been planned and planted so England could, once again, seem better than the rest.  Each scientist involved with the hoax had serious harm to their lives.  Dawson, the amateur archaeologist, faced all of society making claims towards all of his discoveries.  The writer of Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle was not even known as a doctor, and everyone felt that he could have planted the pieces because of his writings.  For society in general, the main question in science was raised once again and at an even greater concern, “who are we? where did we come from?”

Everyone, no matter who you are, has human faults.  Dawson, Doyle, and Sir Arthur were  extremely curious and persistent by nature, obviously, and they wanted to discover the very first human being.  During the early 1900s, England was the only European country that had zero findings of Neanderthal remains and because of all the uproar with the Orthodox church something needed to happen.  They wanted to keep England’s reputation of being the best and felt the only way of doing so was to create the “Piltdown Man”.  The negative human faults that affected these scientists so greatly was greed and lying.

I believe that it is completely possible to remove the  “human” factor from science.  Science is suppose to be factual, testable findings.  Majority of the time it is.  My employer always reminds my coworkers and I that our personal lives are left at the door when we walk in.  When scientists are doing research or want to prove a finding, they should also leave their personal wants and lives behind them for sake of accuracy and honesty.

The “Piltdown Man” has taught me that nothing is ever real or true until further research or investigation is done.  You never want to believe anything from an unknown source, which is hard to do sometimes because of the Internet and the news.