The Piltdown Man

[Coast]

100 years to the week, The Piltdown Man hoax is still not completely resolved:

Piltdown Man: A hoaxer still pursued

It was a shocker, no doubt about it. The Piltdown Man scandal is arguably the greatest scientific fraud ever perpetrated in the UK.

When the fake remains of our earliest ancestor were unmasked for what they really were, shame was heaped on the research establishment. But exactly 100 years to the week that this extraordinary hoax was presented to the world, the Piltdown Man "fossils" are back in the lab and the subject of serious study. The intention is not to try to re-authenticate them; rather, the purpose is to try to identify once and for all who was responsible for the deception.

The majority view is that it was Charles Dawson, a solicitor, antiquarian and amateur palaeontologist from the southern English county of Sussex.

He was at hand for most of the major "discoveries" at the dig sites on the edge of Piltdown village. Most people believe his hand was responsible for planting the key faux specimens in local gravels. These included an ape-like jaw fragment, complete with molars and a canine tooth, some human-looking cranial parts, plus assorted stone tools and ancient mammal remains. Much of the haul was stained to reflect long-term burial in the gravels, to make the artefacts look like they truly were many hundreds of thousands of years old.

The collection was utter rubbish, of course: a mix of bones - some very modern - that had in a number of cases been crudely filed to give them the shape expected of an ancient human species. But although chemical testing finally exposed the fraud in 1953, there has always been some doubt over the culprit's true identity.

Hence, the new battery of testing now under way, which aims to close the book on the remaining uncertainty, according to Prof Chris Stringer from London's Natural History Museum (NHM). "What we're trying to do is apply forensic level techniques to this material," he told the BBC World Service Discovery programme. "We're trying to find out how many kinds of staining techniques there were, how many methods of modification, how many specimens were used between all these assemblages. The more we narrow it down to one person, the more in my view it will point to Dawson's central involvement in the whole thing."

DNA testing should determine whether the jaw fragment really was from an orangutan or some other kind of ape. Isotopic analysis could reveal the original locations from where some materials were sourced, since different regions of the world have characteristic isotopic compositions in their rocks and groundwater. There is a suspicion, for example, that the skull pieces were actually taken from an Egyptology collection.

Radiocarbon dating will tell the team the precise ages of the artefacts. That jawbone is probably a few hundred years old at most, but the new science ought to be definitive. And spectroscopy should expose the chemistry of the staining fluids. If one "cocktail" is found to have been used to colour all the materials, it would hint strongly that a single perpetrator was at work, especially if that recipe was used at all dig sites. That is because only Dawson knew the location of the second site.

Dr Matt Pope from University College London has even been back to the Piltdown gravels themselves. "We want to go back to the original records of the excavations, to follow the logic of Dawson and others involved and to see these deposits with modern archaeological and geological eyes," he told us. "This will give a better understanding of the context of the fraud. It will provide samples that allow us to do two very separate things. One will provide materials we can study to understand the material basis of the fraud itself. But also - and for me this is the most exciting thing as a human origins researcher - it can allow us to begin the systematic study of the genuine part of this hoax - the Ice Age gravels, their age, their significance and the genuine finds associated with them."

Those finds included mammal fossils, such as mastodon (an elephant-like creature) and rhino remains. They were genuine in the sense that they were very old, but they had no business being in the Sussex gravels. And Prof Adrian Lister's research may well have identified the true origin of this material. The jaw fragment probably came from a young orangutan

"Fossils of the mastodon and the rhino are quite rare. There's really only one place where you can excavate remains of the mastodon species. It's a deposit in Suffolk called the Red Crag; and this deposit is between two and three million years old," the NMH researcher explained. "Even back then these species were recognized as being quite ancient, and that was quite deliberate because, not only, was it an attempt to make the site look real but also that the human remains were very old."

You would be forgiven for thinking that the British scientific community would really have liked to pack the Piltdown specimens in a box and have them crushed. But the memory and interest is maintained, if for no other reason than the whole affair serves as a warning for how things can go horribly wrong. That said, it proves also the power of the scientific method ultimately to find the truth. Prevalent theories stand or fall in the face of constant questioning; and although it took 40 years to finally unmask the deceit, the Piltdown claims were looking ragged long before their eventual collapse because of truly compelling discoveries made elsewhere in the world.

"People obviously have to keep their guard up when there is some new find," reflected Prof Stringer. "Sometimes, if something seems too good to be true, maybe it is too good to be true. And just because something fits your theories you shouldn't therefore lower your guard and believe it absolutely from the start; you have to assess how the find fits into the bigger pattern."

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-20729785

Edited December 17, 2012 by Coast

[Village]

In a strange but round about sort of way the hoaxer has probably advanced the cause of science by encouraging new techniques in forensics!

[Coast]

Or was it Sherlock Holmes creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who lived close by in Crowborough????

http://skeptics.stac...ltdown-man-hoax

Richard Milner, an American historian of science, has presented a case that Conan Doyle may have been the perpetrator of the Piltdown Man hoax of 1912, creating the counterfeit hominid fossil that fooled the scientific world for over 40 years. Milner says that Conan Doyle had a motive—namely, revenge on the scientific establishment for debunking one of his favourite psychics—and that The Lost World contains several encrypted clues regarding his involvement in the hoax

http://en.wikipedia....hur_Conan_Doyle

The Piltdown Man 'fossils' were locked away followings Dawson's death in 1916 and it was not until 1949 that scientists were able to carry out extensive tests. Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, who lived near the site, was one of the people rumoured to have been involved in the hoax.

As well as discovering the remains originated from two different species, they also found microscopic scratches on the teeth, proving they had been filed down to appear more human like.Most of the finds at the site, including the tools, had been artificially stained to match the local gravel colour.

In the recent investigation, scientists subjected the bone fragments to DNA analysis to prove which ape species the jaw came from.

Tests on the different stainsused in the Piltdown Man will also finally prove who was responsible. If material obtained at the two sites match then Dawson is the most likely culprit.

Natural History Museum anthropologist Professor Chris Stringer, who is leading the study, told the Sunday Telegraph: 'We haven't got a signed confession so we can never know conclusively, but I think we can add more evidence that it was probably one person who was responsible. 'That person was probably Dawson.' But despite being a fraud Prof Dawson believes the Piltdown Man does have a genuine importance.

He said: 'The hoax is a stark reminder to scientists that if something seems too good to be true then perhaps it is too good to be true.

'It is a warning to scientists to keep their critical guard up, but on the positive side it is also an example of the eventual triumph of the scientific method

http://www.dailymail...oled-world.html

Edited December 17, 2012 by Coast