Page 192 - The Transitional Form Dilemma

THE TRANSITIONAL-FORM DILEMMA

of transcendent importance to the prehistory of man.” 189
In 1949, however, Kenneth Oakley of the British Museum
Paleontology Department requested that a fluorine test, a new method
of determining age, be performed on certain old fossils. The Piltdown
Man fossil was duly subjected to the test, and the conclusion was most
surprising, showing that Piltdown Man’s jawbone contained no fluo-
rine. This meant that the jawbone had been under the earth for no more
than a few years. The skull, which contained a low level of fluorine, was
only a few thousand years old.
Subsequent chronological investigations based on the fluorine
method revealed that the skull was indeed only a few thousand years
old. It was also realized that the teeth in the jawbone had been artifi-
cially abraded, and that the primitive tools found beside the fossil had
been carved with steel implements. The
forgery was confirmed by Weiner’s
detailed analyses in 1953. The

Evolutionists interpreting the
Piltdown Man

190