Books

Facts and Fallacies of the Fossil Record:
Re-Evaluating the Supposed Evidences for Human Evolution

By Brett A. Rutherford

Lesson Eleven

The Piltdown Hoax: Another Black Eye for Human Evolutionary Theory

In 1925 the famous Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee brought the debate over the feasibility of human evolution to a climatic showdown between two of America’s greatest attorneys. On the side of the creationists was the prosecuting attorney, William Jennings Bryan. For the defense was the arrogant and brash Chicago criminal lawyer, Clarence S. Darrow.¹²⁰ Unfortunately, the trial did not ultimately result in the dismissal of the theory of human morphology as a viable option in explaining human origins. However, the Scopes trial revealed an embarrassing tendency on the part of evolutionists to present artifacts in support of evolution, which in the end proved to have no bearing on the case at all. For example, Henry Fairfield Osborn, of the American Museum of Natural History attempted to take advantage of the media focus on the trial to bring to the public’s attention artifacts which he believed proved man’s apelike ancestry. He presented a tooth from Nebraska, which he described on national radio as clear evidence of an early ape man. Osborn was publicly humiliated when this tooth was later revealed to be that of a peccary (a pig).¹²¹

Osborn’s pig man of Nebraska was only one of many frauds produced by evolutionists in their desperate scramble to find, or invent, anything to legitimize a poor theory. Another very prominent forgery had occurred during the infancy of evolutionary thought. In 1863, one of the earliest paleoanthropologists, Boucher de Perthes, was caught presenting fake implements and tampered bones, which he supposedly uncovered at the Neanderthal site of Moulin Quignon near Abbeville, France.¹²²

Other infamous hoaxes appeared at Galley Hill and Ipswich, England but the greatest forgery perpetrated upon the scientific community since the introduction of evolutionary theory was the presentation of “Piltdown man” as a missing link in the human morphological line of descent. For decades, this so called “dawn man” fooled the experts into believing that a predecessor of modern man had been found in Great Britain. In the end, the true identity of the “Piltdown man” was revealed. He turned out to be nothing more than a human skull and an altered orangutan jaw. The experts had been the target of a cruel joke.

Although evolutionists have now removed “Piltdown man” from their model of human transmutation, it is still necessary to discuss it. It is a subject worthy of consideration because it illustrates two things about the way evolutionists reason. In the first place, this hoax reveals that their misguided zeal often gets in the way of the facts. This is an element that should have already become evident to the reader. In the second place, the Piltdown incident shows the experts know considerably less than they would like the public to believe.

The Piltdown Discovery

The story of the Piltdown fraud began on December 18, 1912. On that infamous day, Arthur Smith Woodward and Charles Dawson announced to a meeting of the Geological Society at Burlington House that they had “incontrovertible proof of Man’s ape-like ancestry.”¹²³ Their so-called “incontrovertible proof” consisted of most of one side of a thick ape-like lower jaw and a good portion of a human skull. The only crucial pieces that were missing were the eye-tooth from the jaw, and the face from the skull. Along with the bone fragments, Dawson and Woodward fortified the scientific communities’ faith in their discovery by presenting stone tools which they claimed were found in the same archaeological context as the fragments. Dawson further impressed the crowd with a detailed account of the find.¹²⁴

Dawson claimed the discovery was made during a casual stroll down a farm road near Piltdown Common in Sussex. He said that during the course of his walk, he happened to notice the road had been repaired by unusual brown flints not commonly found in that area. Upon further investigation, he was surprised to discover the flints had come from the gravel bed of a nearby farm, Barkham Manor. Dawson said he decided to visit the gravel bed where he found two road workers digging up gravel. He claims he asked the two men if they had uncovered any bones or fossils. At that time they had not. Dawson supposedly asked the men to save anything unusual which they found. On a subsequent visit, one of the men reportedly handed Dawson a small section of a human parietal bone. Dawson claims that it was this discovery that led him to dedicate the next few years to excavating the gravel pit. Eventually, he said he uncovered the much larger fossils that were used to piece together the head of “Piltdown man”.¹²⁵

The presentation of Charles Dawson’s detailed account of his “discovery” near Piltdown Common impressed all who were present at Burlington House. Most of Britain’s greatest scientific minds congratulated him for uncovering what they believed to be a 500,000 year old human ancestor. There were even some present who believed Dawson and Woodward had given a date for their find which was far too modern.¹²⁶

After Dawson completed his presentation, Woodward stood up and gave an in-depth analysis of the fossil fragments and how they fit together. Upon completing his presentation, Woodward concluded: “While the skull is essentially human...the mandible appears to be that of an ape, with nothing human except the molar teeth.”¹²⁷ Ironically, Woodward admitted what would later be revealed. The skull was human and the mandible was that of an ape. However, he was so eager to have any evidence to support a weak theory that he overlooked the obvious. Sadly, Woodward was not alone. Incredibly, almost the entire scientific community ignored what the fossils actually revealed. Instead of dismissing the fossils as a fraud, Woodward declared that the unusual combination of the human skull and the ape-like jaw should be considered a new genus and species of man. This proposed new genus and species would be named in honor of its discoverer, Charles Dawson. Therefore, the remains were given the Latin designation, Eoanthropus dawsoni.¹²⁸

Although most committed themselves to the support of Dawson and Woodward’s fossil man, there were a few critics. One of these critics was David Waterston of King’s College. He found it difficult to conceive of a functional connection between a jaw so similar to that of a chimpanzee and a cranium that was in every way human.¹²⁹ However, his objections were largely ignored. Another prominent skeptic was Arthur Keith, Conservator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. He believed Woodward had made a strong and logical case in connecting the jaw with the cranium. However, Keith, like many others, would not be completely convinced until the eye-tooth was found. Smith Woodward believed the eye tooth, when found, would have the appearance of the canine of a chimpanzee. However, it would not protrude any higher than the other teeth. In that regard it would be very much like a human tooth.

The pressure on Woodward and Dawson to present the missing canine increased over the next year until it was conveniently uncovered on August 30, 1913. A young priest, Teilhard de Chardin, claimed that he found the tooth near the spot where the lower jaw had been uncovered.¹³⁰ None seemed to question why it took so long to discover a tooth that was so close to the original find. Teilhard de Chardin later confessed “that Dawson pointed him to the spot where an observant man could hardly fail to find the tooth.”¹³¹ Of course the tooth was exactly how Woodward had described. It had an ape-like appearance but its size was comparable to that of the canine of any modern human. Even though some remained skeptical, Woodward and Dawson had won over some very influential scientists with the discovery of the eye tooth.

Even more critics of the Piltdown fossils were put in their place during the next season of excavations. Woodward and Dawson claimed to have uncovered a fossilized elephant bone which appeared to have been shaped like a club. However, there were still those who wondered why no other fossil remains of this genus and species had been discovered. These critics were answered by the discovery of another jaw and cranium two miles from the original site.¹³² Very few cared that evidence seemed to conveniently pop up when needed to dispel the arguments of the skeptics.

By 1915, the only prominent anatomist who stood in opposition to the validity of the Piltdown “link” was Waterston. Until his death in 1921, he remained firm in his belief that the jaw and skull were not connected.¹³³

The Truth Revealed

Three decades passed before the scientific community began to reevaluate the Piltdown findings. The proclamation of geologists in 1944 that these fossils could not have been as old as had been initially believed reopened the debates over the validity of the findings. In 1949, Dr. Kenneth Oakley decided that the age of the bones could be determined by the almost forgotten fluorine dating method.

The fluorine dating method was developed in 1892 by French mineralogist, Carnot. He proposed that the amount of fluorine in soil water is slowly absorbed by fossils through time. Theoretically, the older fossils would have a higher fluorine content.¹³⁴

Oakley’s first application of the fluorine dating method to the Piltdown fossils proved to be inconclusive. However, his tests did reveal evidence of a different kind that would help to prove the bones were much younger than had previously been thought. When he drilled into the molar for the fluorine test sample, Oakley noted that the dentine (the interior of the molar) was pure white.¹³⁵ A fossil supposedly the age of the Piltdown fragments would no longer have a white interior. The make-up of the molar should have been a rustic brown. This one fact drove many anatomists, paleontologists, and chemists to begin a flood of experiments to evaluate the exact age of the fossils, and their connection to one another.

One of the first of these experiments involved filing down a chimpanzee’s tooth to see if it would be similar in appearance to the wear of the Piltdown molar. After the chimpanzee’s molar was filed down, polished and stained with permanganate, it was identical to the Piltdown tooth.¹³⁶ This was enough evidence for some to completely dismiss the fossils as a fraud. However, most of the scientific community remained unconvinced. It wasn’t until further drilling in the fossils, and a second fluorine test were completed before all doubts were removed.

W.N. Edwards, the Keeper of Geology at the Natural History Museum, conducted the drilling experiments. The boring sample from the jaw proved to be completely unlike the sample from the cranium. Drilling into the jaw produced shavings which were characteristic of drilled samples from fresh bone. However, boring into the skull produced a fine powder which is typical of semi-fossilization.¹³⁷ Clearly the jaw and cranium were not connected. This experiment was just one of many indicators that the mandible was much younger than the skull.

The final blow that knocked “Piltdown man” from the annals of evolution came from a second application of the much improved fluorine dating method. Dr. Oakley had worked to refine this technique since it had proven to be inconclusive when first applied to the Piltdown fossils. However, the second test proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the skull was much older than the jaw. This application revealed that the fluorine content of the cranium was 0.1 percent whereas the jaw produced a fluorine percentage rate of only 0.03. Furthermore, when the same tests were done on the isolated molar, it measured a fluorine amount of only 0.01 percent. Therefore, not only were the jaw and skull not connected, but the infamous molar could not be associated with either one.¹³⁸ The result of the second fluorine test was verified by a Nitrogen content analysis which confirmed that the mandible, cranium, and molar could not be associated.¹³⁹ The same results were achieved when Oakley applied these methods to the second set of fossils found two miles from the initial discovery.

The nitrogen and fluorine tests dismissed any thought that the jaw and skull were connected. However, one mystery remained unsolved. The center of this mystery was the coloration of the “Piltdown man’s” jaw. The mandible was a yellowish brown. The tests had proven that the jaw was that of a non-fossilized ape. However, a non-fossilized ape jaw would not have been yellowish brown. What factors could have accounted for this unnatural tinge?

Upon further examination, Dr. Oakley discovered that the outermost layer of the mandible had a low iron oxide content. The low level of iron oxide on the surface of the jaw confirmed his suspicions that someone had covered the surface with ordinary house paint. The culprit in all probability was the very common paint — vandyke brown.¹⁴⁰ A further chemical analysis of the outer layer of the jaw and molar showed that the surface contained an earth pigment commonly applied as an oil paint. The paint used was thought to be red sienna.¹⁴¹

Although no one questioned Dr. Oakley’s results, one final test was performed. This experiment involved pounding the drilled shavings from the jaw and the bored powder from the cranium with X-rays. Older bone fragments will absorb more of the X-rays than younger samples. The fact that the cranium powder absorbed more rays than the mandible shavings surprised no one.¹⁴²

Even though the Piltdown enigma had been proven to be a forgery, further experiments were conducted to determine how one could accomplish such a high level of authenticity. One of the problems that these scientific sleuths faced was the tremendous amount of apparent water wear on the lower jaw. This is a feature indicative of great age. How would one simulate this characteristic? Through much experimentation it was discovered that one could artificially create this feature by dipping a bone in weak acids, drying it, then rubbing it with abrasives.¹⁴³

Finally, an in-depth reexamination of the jaw proved that it had been the intentionally mutilated mandible of a recently deceased female orangutan.¹⁴⁴ Dr. Waterston’s objections were finally vindicated!

Review Questions

1. What did the Scope’s trial reveal about the tendencies of evolutionists?

2. What are some examples of evolutionists tampering with the fossils in order to make evolution appear more feasible?

3. Even though evolutionists no longer consider “Piltdown man” an important evolutionary link, why is it important to consider the events that surrounded this forgery?

4. Who presented the Piltdown fossils to the scientific community?

5. Initially, how old did the scientists believe “Piltdown man” to be?

6. Which prominent scientist was skeptical of the authenticity of the Piltdown fossils from the day they were first presented?

7. How was the missing eye tooth uncovered?

8. How many years passed before scientists began to test the Piltdown remains for authenticity?

9. What did drilling into the molar reveal?

10. What test finally proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the jaw and the skull of the “Piltdown man” were not connected?

11. What had the perpetrator of this hoax used to stain the skull to give it the appearance of great age?

12. What was used to change the color of the jaw and molar to give them the appearance of great age?

13. The mutilated jaw of the “Piltdown man” was proven to belong to what great modern ape?

14. How did the forgerer make the jaw appear as if it had undergone a tremendous amount of water wear?