PILTDOWN MAN

1.   In 1912 near an English town, was a little village called Piltdown, where Charles Dawson an amateur archaeologist stared digging in a gravel pitch and claimed he found a piece of an ancient human skull. After this discovery Dawson invited geologist Arthur Smith Woodward of the natural history museum to join him at Piltdown. They found fossils that seemed to be one million years old. The scientist community remained skeptic, because scientists had discovered the remains of primitive humans in France, Germany, and Asia but none in England. Charles Dawson found the most astonishing fossil of all a jawbone apparently part of the same skull. The jawbone they found did not look human, it was very much like the jawbone of an ape. So they thought they had found a new specie that connected apes and humans directly. Woodward was who made the announcement of their discovery, scientists were more than happy to know about the new evidence of what could had been the oldest of all the ancient human fossils ever found. Newspapers called it “Piltdown man.” Because of Woodward prestige no one doubted about the veracity of the discovery, though he specialized in fish fossils. Arthur Keith, an England anatomist was also a supporter of the new discovery, because it backed up his personal theory of human evolution, that was humans developed big brains before they walked upright. But scientist know nowadays that the opposite is true, upright walking developed long before the big brain. For the next decade the model of Piltdown man dominated research of human evolution, even though no more fossils turned up after Charles Dawson died in nineteen sixteen. It was not until scientist stared finding new fossils in Asia and Africa that they noticed those new remains did not match with Piltdown fossils. The new finds came from human ancestors that live hundreds of thousands of years after Piltdown man. It was hard to know if there was a misunderstanding because todays lab tests including dating methods did not yet exist.

2.   To me the biggest human fault here was the intention of wanting recognition without having into account the consequences those actions could bring with. Charles Dawson was a very ambitious man and wanted to be a fellow of the royal society. Scientists were skeptic for some time until they could make some tests on the Piltdown fossils, but in those times technology was not as advance as it is today, so it was until almost 45 years later they realized it was a hoax.  

3.   After World War II, taking advantage of new technology by       measuring the fluorine content of fossils scientists could roughly date them. In 1949 scientists conducted a test on the Piltdown fossils and found that the remains were rather younger. In 1953 scientists launched the first full scale analysis with better dating methods, and found that the stain on the bones were superficial, they had been stained, the fossils were probably cut, the teeth were altered giving them a desired shape, the jawbone dated back less than 100 years and it came from a female orangutan. The conclusion, someone had forged the Piltdown fossils.

4.   I don’t think the human factor should be removed from science, as it was stated above, scientists are curious, creative and persistent, and without these characteristics we would not have an idea of what evolution means, we would not have an idea of where we come from and who are our ancestors. I think we would be hundreds of years behind if it was not because of the people that every day works to know how this world function.

5.   Well, my life lesson is not believing in everything you just see, read, or hear, definitively there must be evidence and trustfully sources to approve certain information.