Piltdown Hoax

          The Piltdown Man hoax was the remains of jaw bone and skull found in 1912 in a southern English village called Piltdown. The remains were found by an amateur archeologist Charles Dawson. These remains at the time were seen as an evolutionary branch of early humans. The skull resembled a human skull, while the jaw structure resembled that of an ape, yet the teeth that were found on the jaw were flattened down like that of a human. The remains at the time were thought to be one million years old. It was a big discovery at the time for remains of early humans had been found in France, Germany, and Asia but none in England. It was a joy in the scientific community that England now had ancient human fossils, which may have been the oldest of all found at the time. The findings at the time would have taught us that humans had developed big brains before they walked upright. However the opposite is known to be true today. In the 1920’s more early human fossils began to be found in Asia and Africa. The fossils that were found seemed to come after the Piltdown man fossil, yet the fossils had skulls that were less human like than the Piltdown man. This raised a lot of suspicion about the fossil however there were no accurate dating methods available at the time. In 1953 a full scale analysis was conducted on the fossil. It showed that the fossil had been artificially stained and that it had been cut with a steel knife. They had also found that the teeth were filed down into a desired shape by evidence of many scratch marks. They found that the jaw bone had come from a female orangutan less than 100 years ago and the skull had come from a modern day human. Parts of the jaw that would have indicated it was an orangutan were cut off and removed. For scientists this was a big discovery that had disproved their knowledge for 40 years. However it positively affected the field of science since the skull did not match up with other findings. 

          Many humans by nature want to become recognized and known for something within their life. The desire for an accomplishment and to make a discovery could have led someone to do this. With no early human remains being found in England at the time many people became very happy over this discovery, although there were skeptics many people wanted to believe that such a huge discovery could have been made in England. The national museum where it was kept did not allow many people to view the remains because of the belief or want of belief that it was real, which did not allow much way of disproving the skull. I believe that the human faults of wanting to believe in something and the desire of an accomplishment came into play here.

          The first test to analyze the Piltdown man was a fluorine test in 1949 that could roughly date fossils. The results of this test showed that the fossil was roughly a hundred thousand years old.  In 1953 a full scale analysis was conducted on the fossil. It showed that the bones had been stained with an iron solution and chromic acid in order to produce a look of age. The jaw had come from a female orangutan and parts of the jaw were removed to not allow people to tell that it was from an orangutan such as the front of the jaw, and the top. The teeth upon microscopic evaluation had scratch marks and abrasions on them that showed they had been filed down to look as if they would be human like. The teeth likely came from a chimpanzee. The skull had come from a human dating back around 500 years ago or so. So the skull was of a modern human. All of these pieces were skillfully crafted together in order to create this elaborate hoax.

          I do not think that it is possible to remove the human factor from science completely. I think that we can lessen it as paying attention to evidence and logic, and not being afraid to challenge others in their findings. I think it is important to try and lessen the human factor in science as much as we can to be able to avoid error. In science we cannot go off of what we want to see, we have to go with the evidence and what our logic makes of it. I also think that findings and theories should not be afraid to be challenged in order to better understand. I think that it is human nature to see and understand what we want to understand internally, placebo effect should try to be avoided. People often times are afraid to speak up when with the minority and going against the majority’s will however this is something that we also should avoid.

          With this historical event, I think it can teach us that it is very important to thoroughly examine any evidence found. When information is taken from an unverified source it should be thoroughly examined and questioned. It should be questioned as to where it was found, when it was found, and how it was found. Information should never be just blindly accepted.