Page 4 - Crimes of 20th century

3. The Fake Ape-Man, 1912

Eoanthropus dawsoni was the scientific name of this alleged missing link, and it would
have been an extremely early example of a creature showing both human and apelike
qualities. At 375,000 years old, it put England in contention for a cradle of humankind,
being found in the Sussex town of Piltdown. The "first Englishman" he was proudly called
when the anthropologist Charles Dawson found him in 1911. For decades, Piltdown Man
was cited along with Neanderthal man and Heidelberg man as an example of early hominid
life in Europe. Then in 1953, the fragments, including a jawbone, were tested: they did not
contain enough fluorine to be the age that Dawson claimed; worse, the jawbone was that
of a 10-year-old orangutan, its teeth ground down to simulate age, and a crude chemical
wash applied to the bone to make it appear ancient. No one knows who perpetrated the
hoax: Dawson had died in 1916. Very quickly, however, Piltdown became a synonym for
phony; and England's claim to antiquity was cut short by several hundred thousand years.

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