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Showing posts with the label Charles Dawson

Ever heard of the Piltdown Man?

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In 1912, Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist in England, claimed he'd made one of the most important fossil discoveries ever. Ultimately, however, his "Piltdown Man" proved to be a hoax. By cleverly pairing a human skull with an orangutan's jaw – stained to match and give the appearance of age – a mysterious forger duped the scientific world. In the decades between the find's unearthing and the revelation it was fraudulent, people in the United States and around the world learned about Piltdown Man as a "missing link" connecting ape and man. Newspaper articles, scientific publications  and museum exhibitions  all presented Piltdown Man as a legitimate scientific discovery supporting a particular vision of human evolution. Historians, science writers and others have  investigated the Piltdown Man controversy  over the years, shedding  new light on the fraud . As we reconsider the nature of " facts ," " fake news " and knowledge