Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society

Marginalia: Piltdown Man: The Great English Mystery Story

Author(s): Keith Stewart Thomson
Source: American Scientist, Vol. 79, No. 3 (May-June 1991), pp. 194-201
Published by: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
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Marginalia

Piltdown Man: The Great English Mystery Story

Keith Stewart Thomson

Piltdown man forgery of 1912 was one of themost 1907?were being made on the European continent. No pre
was
The successful and wicked of all scientific frauds. Although glacial human remains had been found inBritain. There
the discovery of the supposedly primitive British "dawn also considerable argument over the significance of so
man"?scientifically christened Eoanthropus dawsoni?was called "eoliths," simple stone artifacts thatmight logically
announced almost 80 years ago, the forgery continues to have preceded themore finished "paleoliths," but which
attract attention because it has never been satisfactorily were also crude enough to have been caused naturally by
resolved. Even though themain culprit has probably been abrasion. While many Pleistocene sites?dating from about
identified, there remain nagging doubts and obscure hints 10,000 years ago to two million years ago?were being
that the true storymay be more complicated. uncovered in Britain, there was a dire lack of Pliocene
There has been a steady flow of books attempting to ex? deposits?in the epoch spanning twomillion to fivemillion
pose the Piltdown affair.After having been very dissatisfied years ago. But the fossil hunters believed they knew where
a little sleuthing of the remains of early humans would be found; they focused
by the latest of these (1), I decided to do
my own; I now believe that an answer to the Piltdown their attention on the gravel beds of southern England and
riddle can be given. The answer fits every requirement of a their counterparts on the European continent.
classic English mystery story?including some high Dawson came upon one such gravel bed in 1898when he
comedy. Itmay well be that a simply marvelous solution became Steward of Barkham Manor, near the village of
has been sitting in frontof us all for a long time. Piltdown, Sussex. Along the drive to the manor a small
exposure of gravel had been partially excavated for a pond.
manor only once every
The Discoveries Although Dawson held court at the
The bare bones, so to speak, of the Piltdown hoax begin four years, he apparently took a keen interest in the gravel
with a country solicitor by the name of Charles Dawson bed. In 1908 Dawson invited another enthusiastic
(1864-1916), who practiced law in the county of Sussex, amateur?a local chemistry instructor, Samuel Allinson
England. Dawson was a somewhat pretentious
man who, Woodhead?to join him on an investigation of the Piltdown
not was quite influential. He gravel bed. Dawson had toldWoodhead thatworkmen had
though especially popular,
made significant contributions to his lifelong hobbies of found peculiar flints and something "like a coconut,"
geology and anthropology, including the discovery of the presumably a skull, in the gravel bed. The two of them
firstMesozoic mammals in Britain. In the decades before searched the gravel, but ultimately found nothing except
Piltdown, Dawson had built up an important collection of "pieces of dark brown ironstone closely resembling the
fossils for the British Museum (Natural History) and had piece of a skull" (2).
developed a professional relationship with Arthur Smith InMay, 1909,Dawson was searching forbones in one of his
Woodward of theDepartment of Geology at theMuseum. favorite quarries near Hastings, when he met two strangers
But Dawson also had a less scrupulous side. He plagiarized a who were also exploring the deposits. The two other fossil
historical account ofHastings Castle, Sussex, from an earlier hunters were Jesuitpriests: Father Felix Pelletier and a young
was an aus?
unpublished manuscript. And he apparently bought his ele? seminary student, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. It
gant house on the grounds of Lewes Castle by pretending to picious occasion; Dawson and Teilhard became friendswho
act on behalf of the Sussex Archaeological Society. would collect fossils together for several years afterward.
In the firstdecade of the 20th century,Dawson, likemany A series of other noteworthy events occurred during a
of his contemporaries, was actively searching for the fossil six-year period leading up to the public announcement of
and artifactual remains of early humans. Itwas a time in the Piltdown find in 1912. In 1906 Dawson a
acquired
which several discoveries of human ancestral remains were human skull, lacking a jaw, from aMr. Burley ofNutley (3).
made throughout Europe. However, the most important Sometime between 1908 and 1912, Dawson asked the
discoveries?such as the Heidelberg jaw found in chemist Samuel Woodhead how one might treat a bone to
make it look like a fossil (4). Between 1908 and 1911 Dawson
showed pieces of a human skull?said to have been found
Keith Stewart Thomson is president of theAcademy ofNatural Sciences, at the Piltdown site?to members in his circle of amateur
19th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Logan Square, geologists, anthropologists and antiquarians. Among those
Philadelphia, PA 19103.
who saw the remains were Teilhard, Henry J. Sargent, a

194 American Scientist, Volume 79

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 .
.....:
^^^??^^^^^?Hw^Mm^M^^

,?*??*>? ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ j^g^jpj^^

Figure 1. Principal participants are

gathered around the fossil remains of Piltdown man?the supposed "dawn man" of Britain, and one of
themost embarassing and successful scientific frauds in history?in this oil painting by the Chelsea artist John Cooke. The discovery of
Piltdown man was announced in 1912, but its fraudulence was not uncovered until 1953. The forgery misled some of the leading

anthropologists and paleontologists of the period. Even today, the identity of the perpetrators and the means by which the fraud was
committed have not been satisfactorily resolved. The painting, entitled "A Discussion on the Piltdown Skull," is based on a meeting at the
of on the afternoon of 11,1913, which the their views on the anatomy of
Royal College Surgeons August during participants presented
Piltdown man. One or more of these men may have been involved in committing the fraud, while others were the unwitting victims. The

anthropologist Arthur Keith (wearing the white laboratory coat) is seated at the table examining the Piltdown skull. Seated to Keith's left
are the osteologist William stands in front, to Keith's right.
Pycraft and the zoologist Ray Lankester. The dentist Arthur Underwood
Standing in the back (from Keith's far left) are the geologist Arthur Smith Woodward, the amateur paleontologist Charles Dawson, the
anatomist Graf ton Elliot Smith, and Frank Barlow, an assistant toWoodward. Other notables in the Piltdown affair, such as Pierre Teilhard
de Chardin, Lewis Abbot and Martin Hinton, were not present at the discussion. On the back wall, a portrait of Charles Darwin presides
over themeeting. (Photograph courtesy of the Geological Society of London.)

museum curator, and Lewis Abbott, who kept a jewelry and together.At the site,Dawson picked up another skull frag?
curio shop inHastings. Abbott was a leading player in the ment, while Teilhard found part of an elephant molar; when
"eolith" controversy and had an important collection of Woodward saw the tooth,he "jumped on thepiece with the
fossils. It has since become known thatAbbott had Daw enthusiasm of a youth and all the fire thathis apparent cold?
son's Piltdown fossils for a while during this period and ness covered came out" (1). Teilhard, who had apparently
soaked at least some of them inpotassium dichromate solu? been asked along as someone who could be trusted not to
tion "to harden them." Dawson also exchanged artifacts make the find public, also picked up a paleolith.
with another major collector of implements, Harry Morris. During themonth of June?while Teilhard had left for
Then, inFebruary of 1912,Dawson wrote to his colleague, France?Woodward and Dawson worked at the gravel bed,
the geologist Arthur Smith Woodward, telling him that he finding three pieces of a right parietal bone and a broken
had discovered a fragment of a human skull at Piltdown (3). lower jaw,which was uncovered by Dawson. With the aid
A month laterDawson sentWoodward one of the associated of various assistants, including the chemist Woodhead,
Piltdown specimens, which Woodward identified as a pre Dawson and Woodward a collection
eventually assembled
molar from a hippopotamus. In lateMay, Dawson showed of animal bones and what appeared to be eoliths. In July
his human and animal specimens toWoodward; and on June Dawson showed his Piltdown eoliths to the local expert
2,Dawson, Woodward and Teilhard visited thePiltdown site Lewis Abbott, who pronounced them "man all over" (1).

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 Back at the BritishMuseum, Woodward and his assistant
Frank Barlow attempted to reconstruct the Piltdown skull. It
is not clear who saw the remains then, as Woodward was
somewhat secretive. But at least two people certainly did:
Arthur Keith, who was Conservator of the Hunterian
Museum, at the Royal College of Surgeons, and E. Ray
Lankester, a zoologist and popular author. Keith correctly
foresaw a rivalry for the remains between the British
Museum and the Royal College of Surgeons?particularly
because Woodward was not a trained anthropologist. Keith
was also annoyed, however, because Dawson did not bring
the remains to him (5).
At thispoint only a small circle of specialists and amateurs
knew of the Piltdown remains. On November 21, however,
an unknown source leaked the story to theManchester
Guardian, which brought news of the find to the public. A
month later, on December 18, 1912, the discovery was
officially announced at ameeting of theGeological Society of
London. Within several months, the BritishMuseum made
casts of the finds available for study.
The availability of the casts now meant that the fossils, or
copies of them, could be examined by a number of specialists.
The anthropologist Arthur Keith reconstructed the remains in
such a manner as to give the skull an extremely modern
appearance. In contrast, thegeologist Arthur SmithWoodward
put the fragments together in amore primitive shape. On July
12,1913, Keith and Woodward had a meeting at the Royal
College of Surgeons, and thebattle over their respective inter?
pretations of the skull began. Later, a number of othermajor
and minor players entered the fray, including Grafton Elliott
Smith, a professor of anatomy atManchester University.
Even at this early point in the controversy some doubted
that the jaw and the skull really belonged together.Although
the combination of a modern cranium and a primitive
mandible was what one might expect for an ancestral type,
thematch between the two was imperfect, and some even
an an
suspected that the jaw came from ape. David Waterston,
anatomist at King's College inLondon, was one who never ac?
cepted that the jaw and skull were from the same animal.
Nevertheless, many others, including Keith and Woodward,
merely argued over how the skull should be reconstructed.
Keith also disagreed with Woodward over the ape-like recon?
struction of themissing canine teeth. Keith concluded that
Woodward was totallymistaken about theirprobable shape
and wear patterns, especially inview of theunusually modern
wear pattern on themolars of themandible. Keith andWood?
ward were so caught up in their anatomical reconstructions
that theynever questioned the origin of the remains.
Still, the possibility that the remains were a hoax was ap?
parent to some. InMay of 1913 two amateur archaeologists,
Captain Guy St. Barbe and Major Reginald Marriot, dis?
covered Dawson in his law officeworking with dishes of
chemicals and pieces of bones. They suspected fraud but
said nothing in deference toDawson's wife and family.One
of themmay have told the story toMartin Allistair Camp?
bell Hinton, junior zoologist at the BritishMuseum (Natural
History)?but only afterDawson's death. The observations
of St. Barbe and Marriot came fully to light only in 1953 (3).
Perhaps not surprisingly, more fossil discoveries
were
made in 1913. In July,Dawson wrote Woodward thathe had
found some fragmentary human remains at a second site,
Barcombe Mills, south of Piltdown. However, thisdiscovery
was largely ignored?possibly because somuch was happen?
ingback at the original Piltdown site. Shortly thereafter,Teil?
hard returned toEngland fora brief period, during which he
again joinedWoodward and Dawson in an exploration of the
site.During one such expedition inAugust, Teilhard found a
brown canine tooth: one that exactly matched Woodward's
reconstruction.With thisnew find,Woodward began to carry
the day in debates over the interpretation of the skull.

^^^^^^^^^
Figure 2. Two views of Piltdown man portray the supposed human ancestor as either ape-like a
(left), in reconstruction by Arthur Smith
or more human a jutting jaw, a large lower canine and a small
Woodward, (right), in Arthur Keith's restoration. Woodward constructed
cranial capacity, whereas Keith made the jaw less ape-like, the canine much smaller and the braincase much larger. The Piltdown
bones?consisting of a human skull associated with an orangutan jaw?were stained with potassium dichromate tomake them look older.
The dark areas represent the original bone fragments, whereas the reconstructed regions are white. The diagnostic parts of the ape jaw?the
chin and the condyle that articulates with the skull?were broken off by the forger.

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 5. A

^^^^

Figure 3. Fossilized elephant-bone implement discovered at Piltdown looks strikingly like a cricket bat. The "bat" may have been planted
at Piltdown by a knowing prankster in response to claims that Piltdown man was the first Englishman. In an attempt to reveal the fraud,
the prankster decided that as a proper Englishman, Piltdown man must have had his own cricket bat. The nicks and cuts on the bone

implement were made with a steel knife. (Photograph courtesy of The Natural History Museum, London.)

The anatomist William King Gregory of the American In January, 1915, Dawson wrote toWoodward thathe had
Museum of Natural History also studied thematerial in found the remains of a second dawn man, "Piltdown II," at
one of the clearest statements another site innearby Sheffield Park. Dawson wrote thathe
September 1913.Gregory made
concerning the possibility of fraud: "It has been suspected by found part of a left frontal bone, an occipital bone, a molar
some thatgeologically they are not old at all; that theymay tooth and the molar of a rhinoceros. However, this dis?
represent a deliberate hoax, a Negro orAustralian skull and a covery was not formally announced until February, 1917.
broken ape jaw, artificiallyfossilized and planted in thegravel The two-year delay was partly due to thewar and partly
bed to fool the scientists" (6). Oddly, despite this apparent due toDawson's death on August 10,1916. He leftno infor?
wariness, Gregory's initial response was to endorse the find. mation on the precise location where he made thisnew find.
Others also publicly expressed theirdoubts about Piltdown Nevertheless, Piltdown II silenced the skeptics. Many of
Man. In 1915, the zoologist Gerrit S.Miller, of theU. S. Nation? those who had expressed doubts, including William King
alMuseum ofNatural History, published a paper stating that Gregory?who reversed his position again?now came to
the jawwas thatof a chimpanzee (7).Although Miller's work accept the association of the jaw and the skull.
was savagely attacked by the osteologist, William Plane In addition to the controversy concerning the anatomy of
Pycraft?a friend ofWoodward?it did make an impression Piltdown man, anthropologists had heated debates about the
on some (8).William King Gregory, forexample, reversed his association of Eoanthropus dawsoniwith the stone implements
decision and agreed with Miller's observations. Further found at the site.Was Piltdown man themaker of these
evidence against the case for Piltdown man came from eoliths? One especially remarkable artifactwas uncovered in
George Grant McCurdy of thePeabody Museum ofNatural 1914 by Dawson andWoodward during one of their frequent
History at Yale University, who marshalled strong arguments expeditions (Woodward actually unearthed the object). The
showing that the skull and jaw could not be from the same extraordinary item was shaped like nothing less than the
animal. A Birmingham dentist,W. Courtney Lyne, also pub? business end of a cricket bat. Itwas made from a piece of fos?
lished a paper noting serious inconsistencies concerning the silized elephant bone that showed various nicks and cuts.No
canine tooth that Teilhard had discovered. There was, primitive tools were known that could have produced such
however, more to come thatwould silence the critics. scars, and no obvious use for the object could be suggested.

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The Repellent Idea
One of the reasons the forgerywas so successful was that
therewere somany internal inconsistencies; scientists spent
more time arguing over the interpretation of details than
on validating thewhole matter. For example, there
they did
were no systematic excavations at the site of Piltdown I, and
the Piltdown II site was never found. The forger had also
cleverly salted the gravel bed with faunal elements that in?
dicated up to four separate horizons forgeologists to fit into
the existing Pliocene-Pleistocene chronology.
As the years went on, other paleontological finds?
especially the discovery of Peking man in the 1920s and 1930s
byW. C. Pei and Teilhard de Chardin, the australopithecine
facial skeleton discovered by Raymond Dart in 1924, and
many other European remains?showed thatPiltdown man's
combination of an advanced cranium and a primitive jawwas
anomalous. Piltdown man became verymuch a side issue.
In 1953, the Piltdown man controversy was revived at a
London conference on human origins convened by the
Wenner-Gren Foundation. Notably, the conference brought
together two men: Kenneth Oakley, a geologist from the
BritishMuseum, who had been using various novel chemi?
cal analyses to test the age associations of fossil remains in?
cluding Piltdown, and JosephWeiner, a South-African-born
anthropologist ofOxford University. The two shared a skep?
ticism about the age of the Piltdown remains, the association
of the jaw and the skull, and the haphazard pattern by
which the fossils were collected. Oakley, for instance, had
already shown that the remains were not very old at all.
After dining at the conference one evening with Oakley
and the Chicago anthropologist Sherwood Washburn,
Weiner found himself unable to sleep. The dinner conversa?
tion had turned to the subject of Piltdown man, and after?
wards his thoughts stayed with the topic. A number of
hypotheses raced through his mind?all led him with
inexorable logic to one "repellent" idea: Piltdown man was
a have been a practical joke thatworked unexpectedly well,
forgery (3).After this, all the pieces fell into place.
With remarkable speed, Oakley's chemical analyses
exposed thewhole fraud (3,9). Not a single bone or artifact
fromPiltdown was authentic. Many had been stained with
potassium dichromate tomake them look older, but also so
that theymight resemble remains from another Pleistocene
site,Red Crag in Sussex. As ithappens, some of the animal
remains were fromRed Crag! The jaw was actually from a
sub-fossil orangutan (Oakley thought itmight have been
stolen from theMuseum); the cranium was modern, if
unusually thick (perhaps that of an Australian aborigine),
whereas the canine discovered by Teilhard came from a
modern ape.
The faking of the other items also became apparent. Some
of the bone elements had also been treated chemically to
change the calcium phosphate to gypsum, or calcium sul? Woodward
phate. The Piltdown IImaterial turned out to be from the his scientific collaborator?or
same individual as Piltdown I. The Barcombe Mills material
was also modern and chemically treated. The bone imple? Woodward, but then backed off in dismay when everyone
ment was from a fossil elephant femur that had been cut
with a steel knife. The molar teeth on the jaw had all been
shaped with a steel file. The canine that Teilhard had discov? part of the fraudwas aimed at an individual, itwould have
ered was unusual because it had not been stained with
potassium dichromate. It had merely been colored with
artist'sVandyke brown oil paint. One of the elephant molars
was particularly interesting because ithad almost certainly were deliberate targets of the
come from a site inTunisia.
In the course of the investigation Weiner located the all victims, greedily using Piltdown for theirown ends.
collection of implements Harry Morris had accumulated?
some of which he had traded with Dawson. Among the
collection were undated notes stating that Dawson had
cheated Morris of his best specimen. The notes also stated
thathis specimens had been chemically treated, and thathe
had overheard a conversation to the effect that the canine
tooth had come from France (3). All in all, the suspicions
thatWilliam King Gregory had reported in 1913 were
remarkably
accurate.
The Mysteries
InWeiner's 1955 book?still by far the best treatment of the
hoax?the question of responsibility was dealt with some?
what circumspectly. Weiner may not have wanted to rub
salt into a 40-year-old wound; although Woodward had
died in 1948,many of the participants or their families were
still living.Weiner did, however, strongly point toDawson
as theperpetrator of the fraud. But he was also not perfectly
sure about thenumber of forgers.The forgerywas exposed,
but themystery was not solved.
Now, nearly 40 years afterWeiner's book, we still lack
first-handwitnesses and death-bed confessions. Ifwe are to
find anymore culprits, itwill be through armchair detective
work, focusing on the three classic questions of the roman
policier:means, motive and opportunity.
Although the list of suspects has grown since Weiner's
time, there is no question thatDawson was the central actor
in the Piltdown hoax. Dawson had both themeans and the
opportunity to perpetrate the fraud. He could easily have
obtained all the forged specimens; he had been observed
chemically treating bones; as the Steward of Barkham
Manor he had free access and every opportunity to salt the
gravel beds; and he was the only person present on every
occasion when specimens were found. Moreover, nothing
more was found after he died.
What could have been Dawson's motive? It could simply
and was ultimately taken too seriously for the joker to back
out. But the fraud was a little too systematic for this to be
likely.The next most probable motive may be found inDaw
son's ambition. He longed tobe accepted as a scientist and to
belong to the Royal Society. The only reason he was not
elected to theRoyal Society may be because he died too soon.
But he did pull off a fraud thatmade him famous for 40
years.
Dawson's ambition may have been a sufficientmotive, but
was the fraud also aimed at someone? Because the fraudwas
not unmasked until 1953, none of the principals? Arthur
Smith Woodward, Arthur Keith or Grafton Elliott Smith?
really suffered. But thesemen would have been ruined if the
forgeryhad been exposed earlier. Dawson obviously chose
(a cold man whom no one seems tohave liked) as
unwitting tool. Is it possible
thatDawson meant to reveal his forgery as a great joke on
swallowed the bait so completely? Probably not, because the
forgeries continued to appear for two years. Actually, ifany
been at Arthur Keith, whose theorieswere shot down by the
canine tooth. But Dawson scarcely knew Keith, ifat all, before
1912.Overall, it isdifficult to imagine thatany of the scientists
forgery.To be sure theywere
taken inby the fraud, but theywere also themost willing of

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 Did any of the scientists conspire with Dawson to
perpetrate the fraud? Such possibilities have been raised,
and many notable names have been dragged in on the flim?
siest bit of evidence. But we can prettymuch rule them out.
Everyone agrees thatWoodward was far too stuffy and
to effecta forgery such as this.His careerwas already
boring
quite secure before the incident (10).Moreover, he was still
dictating his "Piltdown" book on his death-bed. The
attempts tomcriminate Keith in a recently published book
are very unconvincing (1). Grafton Elliot Smith entered the
on the sidelines fora
fray rather late?suspiciously hovering
time?but he is not known to have been connected with
Dawson in 1911 or 1912.
Other possible conspirators have been sought among
Dawson's circle of amateur scientists. The eolith specialist
Lewis Abbott is a very likely choice, for example. He surely
had themeans to obtain thematerial and apparently did
treat some of it chemically forDawson?though perhaps
not knowing its intended use. But it is hard to see his
motive. Abbott isnot known tohave had any malice toward
any of the scientists, and he did not benefit from the fraud. It
is hard to imagine him sitting stillwhile Dawson gathered
all the fame. If he intended to double-cross Dawson, he
failed to do so. And significantly,Abbott was not present at
any of the Piltdown excavations.
In addition to the obvious suspects, therehave been some
obviously false confessions, and some very late accusations
against a number of figures?ranging from theOxford geol?
ogist William Johnson Sollas toWoodward's technician
Frank Barlow. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who lived near
Piltdown, has been accused of the fraud. None of these
theories holds water. The search forother conspirators con?
tinues, however, fueled by vague and disquieting rumors.
There are only two principal figures left: Martin Hinton, the
BritishMuseum zoologist, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Martin Hinton is a suspect who has recently been favored
as a villain (11, 12, 13). Not only did he strongly dislike
Woodward, but itwas well known that he was a practical
joker.He was also familiar with Dawson and the amateur
circle. He once claimed to know who had done it: not
Dawson but "someone in the British Museum" (11). This
has been understood by some to be a coded confession. But
the same has been suspected of Teilhard. After the fakery
had been revealed, Teilhard wrote a cryptic letter toWeiner
concerning the finding of the canine: "itwas so inconspicu?
ous... that it seems tome quite unlikely that the tooth could Figure 4. Charles Dawson, a country solicitor and amateur
have been planted" (14). Ifno one else could have planted it, paleontologist, stands as the prime suspect in forging the Piltdown
man remains. The case against Dawson is quite strong. As a
then itmust have been Teilhard. Was this some sort of
collector of fossils and antiquities, he could easily have obtained
Jesuiticalway of admitting thathe put it there?
the false specimens. He had frequent access to the Piltdown
Surprisingly little attention was paid to the suspicion of
gravel
bed where he could have planted the fossils, and he had been
forgery thatWilliam King Gregory reported in 1913. There observed chemically treating bones. Dawson was also the only
was even theprecedent of a similar forgery inFrance in 1863.
person present at the discovery of all the fossil bones and
With experience, paleontologists can usually ascertain where man. Nothing
implements thought to be associated with Piltdown
a particular fossilhas come from; theymay even recognize in? more was found after he died in 1916. Still, it is not at all clear that
dividual specimens iftheyhave seen them before. One of the Dawson wasacting alone. (Photograph courtesy of the Geological
most puzzling aspects of the affair is thatnone of Dawson's Society of London.)

specimens were recognized as ringers.Did someone, perhaps

Barlow or Hinton, actually spot the fraud? In a letter to The
Times of London in 1955,Hinton claimed that the zoologists
at the BritishMuseum would have recognized that the jaw
and the canine were from an ape if theyhad been allowed to
see them. But Hinton certainly saw them and failed tomen?
tion any suspicions when he listed Piltdown as an authentic
element of theBritish Pleistocene fauna in 1926 (15). IfHinton
was involved in the conspiracy, it appears that he backed
away from springing the trap.
Without better evidence on Hinton, letus now reconsider
Teilhard de Chardin as a possible accomplice. Stephen Jay
Gould accuses Teilhard directly, on the basis of a letter in
which Teilhard reveals some information about Piltdown II
that he could only have had as part of the fraud (16).

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Moreover, Teilhard did have themeans and the opportunity
to be a conspirator. He may be the source of the Tunisian
elephant molars uncovered at Piltdown I?a fragment of
which he found at the site.And we must remember that he
also found the painted brown canine. But, in defence of Teil?
hard, let us consider the circumstances. Teilhard had no
feudswith any of theprincipals in the case. He stood to gain
no fame or other benefit from a fraud. He was not even in
the country formany of the discoveries. It is also difficult to
see why Dawson would have needed Teilhard; for thatmat?
ter, it is hard to imagine Teilhard's motive for conspiring
with Dawson. IfTeilhard took part in the hoax thinking it
was to be a joke, he would surely have revealed the fraud
quickly. As far as the slip about Piltdown II in the letter, it
was written nearly 40 years after the initial discovery?
perhaps Teilhard's memory was faultywith respect towhat
he knew and when he knew it.
There is also another possibility: thewhole affairwas ac?
tually aimed at Charles Dawson himself. Was Dawson set
up or double-crossed, perhaps by
one of his amateur
friends? There were certainly enough local people who dis?
liked him. The biggest problem with this theory is that no
one really had the opportunity to pull it off.How could
Abbott, Woodhead or any of the others surreptitiously salt
the gravel bed, while also making sure that the salted spec?
imens would be found?
A Solution
I believe themost plausible answer to all this has been sit?
ting around for about 10 years?unappreciated perhaps be?
cause everyone else has been pursuing their own pet
theories. Back in 1980, Leonard Harrison Matthews devised
a devilishly ingenious scheme that explains nearly all of the
anomalies and motives. Matthews scheme can be modified
and woven into an account of thewhole affair,making the
perfect English crime.
Once the extent towhich he carefully prepared his story is
as the sole instigator of
appreciated, Dawson has to be seen
the fraud. Perhaps the pieces of ironstone resembling a skull
thathe found at Piltdown in 1908 ultimately planted the seed
in his mind. The discovery of theHeidelberg jaw may also
have given him some impetus. The skull Dawson acquired
fromMr. Burley in 1906 presented him with themeans, and
thebarren gravel bed at Piltdown provided the opportunity.
Dawson appears to have assembled the faunal remains
fromhis own collections, as well as from thepurchase and ex?
change of specimens with others.With these he started to lay
the ground work. First, he lured the chemist Samuel Wood
head and the eolith collector Lewis Abbott with his story of
the workmen who discovered the coconut-shaped skull.
Then he chanced upon Teilhard?a perfect addition, some?
thingof an innocent and a priest toboot. But he carefully kept
Teilhard away fromPiltdown at first.By getting Lewis Abbott
to treat some of the specimens, Dawson gave himself some?
one else to accuse, should the fraud be discovered. He even?
tually tested thewaters with Arthur SmithWoodward, first
with a letter,thenwith the hippopotamus premolar. Would
Woodward take the bait? He did, and when he was later
shown the skull specimens, Woodward was hooked.
Dawson then tookWoodward into the field for the first
time; he made sure thatWoodward himself found speci?
mens while Teilhard served as a witness. But the skull alone,
was
although unusually thick,was not enough. A lower jaw
also needed. Itmay have been during one of his visits to the
200 American Scientist, Volume 79
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British Museum at this time thatDawson stole a medieval
orangutan jaw. A complete ape jaw would have been imme?
diately recognized, so he broke off the segments that articu?
latewith the skull as well as other diagnostic parts. Finally,
he filed the teeth to simulate human wear patterns, and then
he planted the specimen.
Woodward took the material to London, where he
showed it to a few other scientists. They all accepted the au?
thenticityof the find, although some questioned the associa?
tion of the jaw and the cranium. Itwas a skillful forgery that
was eagerly swallowed because now the British could claim
a "dawn man" that countered continental discoveries such
as theHeidelberg jaw. Dawson continued to plant material
forWoodward to find at the site in 1912 and 1913. Although
Dawson continued to experiment with other human
material?fabricating the Barcombe Mills discovery?his
work was essentially done.
At first,Woodward was very careful about who saw the
Piltdown materials. In so doing he unwittingly reduced the
chances that the fraud would be exposed. Even some staff
members of the BritishMuseum were not given full access
to the specimens until theGeological Society meeting.
But therewas probably at least one person who spotted
the fraud at firstsight: the zoologist Martin Hinton. Hinton
had a number of things to go on: the associated fossils, the
artificial color, the obviously ape-like jaw.Hinton must have
realized immediately that the culprit was Dawson, and he
probably suspected Woodward, Teilhard and Barlow as
well. But what should he do about it?At that time he was
only a temporary worker at theMuseum; he could scarcely
mount a direct challenge toArthur Smith Woodward, who
was so firmly committed to Piltdown. Nor could he ques?
tion the judgment of Arthur Keith?who had already in?
vested much during his reconstructions of the skull. Even
though Hinton may not have felt the need to help these two
pompous men out of a difficult spot, he had tofind another
way to reveal the fraud.
FirstHinton trieddropping hints toWilliam King Gregory.
But even when Gregory published these "suspicions,"
Woodward was undeterred. If anything, Woodward
plunged harder and deeper into the fray.So Hinton decided
to let the forger know he had been detected, using his
favoriteweapon?a practical joke. After hearing the solemn
debates between Keith andWoodward about the reconstruc?
tion of the jaw and teeth,he decided to salt the gravel bed
with a patently false canine tooth. Perhaps thiswould flush
the forger into revealing himself. At least the forgerwould
know that the game was over.
So Hinton took a canine from an ape and filed itdown so
that it looked preposterously like the plaster canine in
Woodward's reconstruction?the one thatKeith had essen?
tially proved was impossible. Not yet knowing thatDawson
had used potassium dichromate to stain the other speci?
mens, Hinton colored the toothwith artist's brown paint.
At thispoint we can expand the story by bringing inTeil?
hard de Chardin?recently arrived from France, and eager
to get up to date on Piltdown. But we should consider three
possible scenarios. In the first,Teilhard also spotted the
forgery?most probably because of the Tunisian tooth. But
Hinton may also have mentioned his suspicions to Teilhard,
as he had with Gregory. In any case, angry at being duped,
Teilhard joined forceswith Hinton. Teilhard agreed to plant
the canine thatHinton had painted; in the end it turned out
to be easiest ifhe actually found itas well.
 In the second scenario, Teilhard came to conspire with better.As theW. C. Fields movie observes: "You can't cheat
Dawson some time after theymet in 1909, although it is an honest man." Perhaps Dawson had the last laugh after all.
hard to imagine why. In this case, Hinton would have plant?
ed the canine himself; when Teilhard found it,he saw that References
the fraud had been discovered. The third possibility is that 1. Spencer, F. 1990. Piltdown: A Scientific Forgery. New York: Oxford Uni?
Hinton directly confronted Teilhard, who then agreed to versity Press.
2. Dawson, C. 1913. The Piltdown skull. Hastings and East Sussex Natural?
plant the canine tomake amends and to help reveal the ist 2:73-82.
fraud. In any case, Teilhard leftEngland very soon after?
3. Weiner, J.S. 1955. The Piltdown Forgery. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ward, and did not return formany years. Gould believes
4. Costello, P. 1985. The Piltdown hoax reconsidered. Antiquity LIX:167-171.
thatTeilhard actually warns the reader about the forgery in
5. Keith, A. 1950. An Autobiography. London: Watts.
a 1920 paper. Teilhard was forever after rather embarrassed
6. Gregory, W. K. 1914. The dawn man of Piltdown. American Museum
by anymention of Piltdown (16). Journal 14:189-200.
The real difficultywith these schemes is thatHinton's bold 7. Miller, G. S. 1915. The jaw of Piltdown man. Smithsonian Miscellaneous
maneuver had no known effecton Dawson. Dawson neither Collections 65 (12).
had a stroke nor did he make a sudden confession. Nor did man: a
8. Pycraft,W. P. 1917. The jaw of the Piltdown reply toMr. Gerrit S.
anyone else. Itmust have been a nasty moment forDawson Miller. Scientific Progress 11:389-409.
when Teilhard produced the canine?unless, of course, he 9. Oakley, K. P. and C. R. Hoskins. 1950. New evidence on the antiquity of
a real Piltdown man. Nature 2165:179-382.
thought thatGod had saved him after all, by allowing
fossil to be found at Piltdown! But we must also appreciate 10.Woodward, A. S. 1948. The Earliest Englishman. London: Watts.

that,by thispoint, Dawson had no options. He had gone too 11. Halstead, L. B. 1979. The Piltdown hoax; cui bono? Nature 277:596.
of a
far,dragged in by the eagerness of virtually every scientist 12.Matthews, L. H. 1981. The missing links (Part 8): The planting
tooth. New Scientist 90:785.
fromNew York to Paris. In any case, his creation ought tobe
13. Zuckerman, S. 1990. A phony ancestor. New York Review
correct?a British fossilman should exist. So he showed his of Books,
November 8,1990:12-16.
anonymous challenger thathe would not be warned off,and 14.Matthews, L. H. 1981. The missing links (Part 10): Shall we ever know
salted a fewmore minor finds. the truth?New Scientist 91:26-28.
Interestingly,after Teilhard discovered the canine, Daw? 15. Hinton, M. A. C. 1926. The Pleistocene Mammalia of the British Isles
son made several trips toArthur Keith's anatomical muse? and their bearing upon the date of the glacial period. Proceedings of the
um to study gorilla canines (17). Dawson's notes toWood? Yorkshire Geological Society 20:325-348.
ward have been seen as attempts to buttress the authenticity 16. Gould, S. J. 1980. The Piltdown conspiracy. Natural History 89:8-28.
of the canine. They might also have been an attempt to raise 17. Grigson, C. 1990. Missing links in the Piltdown fraud. New Scientist

Woodward's least about the canine?but this 89:55-58.

suspicions?at
may be stretching things too far.
Hinton decided to strike again?this time through a sim?
ply tremendous joke. Having failed to
Hinton decided to catch the anthropologists'
wake the zoologists,
attention. DATABASES
BIBLIOGRAPHIC
PERSONAL
Woodward had started to refer to Eoanthropus rather porten? THEFIRSTGENERATION:
tously as the "First Englishman." So Hinton decided topro? SCI-MATE ? DMS 4 CITE ? PRO-CITE
vide what every true Englishman needs?his very own REFERENCEMANAGER ? REF-11
cricket bat. Hinton appears to have carved the cricket bat
from a piece of fossil elephant femur that had been filched THESECOND GENERATION:
from a museum. Woodward found the bat, covered in yel?
low clay but actually lodged in a soil layer?separated from
the clay by a layer of gravel. Surely, Hinton must have
was an obvious hoax.
thought, this
Hinton's joke turned out to be another flop?no one
seems to have been the slightest bit suspicious! This gave
PAPYRUS VERSION 6.0
Dawson an opportunity tomove in for the kill. He struck
back with Piltdown II. But, cleverly, he also wrote a paper Manages up to 2 million 100% compatible with
reference citations. Stores up to WordPerfect, Microsoft Word,
backing off fromhis former claims about the significance of 16,000characters and TOO PC-Write,WordStar 2000,
the artifacts (1).Now everyone eagerly fell into line,without keywords per reference. WordStar Pro, XyWrite.
even seeing the second Piltdown site. Fast, powerful search Can also be used with virtually
capabilities. all other word processors.
At this point Hinton might have given up and kept his Able to import references from
Dozens of predefined output
laughter?and no doubt his admiration for Dawson's formats,plus the ability to easily national databases, other bib?
nerve?to himself. It is hard to imagine what might have design your own additional liography programs, or almost
formats. any other database or text file.
happened next, because something totally unexpected
occurred: Dawson died. In so doing he neatly turned the Full Registered
00 IBM PC and compatibles
tables on Hinton. Now Hinton was trapped; in an instanthe
and Teilhard had become the only living forgers! The two
System $99
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had no choice but to lie low, dropping hints. Research Software
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role?but at least nothing yet falsifies it.While we can only sequent RegisteredSystempurchase.
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of shoddy evidence by scientists who should have known Circle

1991 May-June 201

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