REVELATIONS IN SCIENCE: the «dawn man» with a human skull and an ape’s jaw
Art design: huxley.media via Photoshop, inspired by René Magritte’s painting «Portrait of Stephy Langui», 1961
Charles Dawson (1864–1916), a lawyer and amateur archaeologist, was pretty well-known. A series of intriguing discoveries made his name significant in the scientific community. However, only one of them was a true masterpiece, radically changing all ideas about human origins and evolution and bringing him worldwide fame.
Prominent scientists praised his discovery, diligently excavating the site where it had been made and uncovering similarly astonishing finds that confirmed the importance of Dawson’s achievements. Throughout his life, and for forty years after his death, he was considered the man behind one of the most important archaeological discoveries.
Finally, some basic research was conducted — studies that should have been done from the moment his discoveries were first unearthed — and Dawson’s reputation came crashing down, along with the theories that had been hastily built around it, leaving a void in the scientific community.
THE ANTICIPATION OF DISCOVERY
Darwin was not the first person to entertain the idea of humans descending from apes — Lamarck and Buffon had expressed similar thoughts much earlier, as had other predecessors. However, it was Darwin who not only publicized this idea but also convincingly substantiated it, making it popular and widely discussed. Both its supporters and opponents began searching for evidence, primarily among fossilized remains.
Starting in 1829, several Neanderthal bone discoveries were made. Now considered indirect ancestors of modern humans, they represent a parallel branch of evolution that left a mark on our genome. In 1868, just three years before Darwin’s The Descent of Man was published, remains of humans close to the modern type were found in the Cro-Magnon cave in France. But where were the remains of a creature bearing traits of both humans and apes, the missing link?
In 1891, on the island of Java, Dutchman Eugène Dubois discovered the skull and femur of Pithecanthropus, a creature resembling both humans and apes. However, his find was unique, and until 1936, nothing similar was unearthed — perhaps it was simply a deformity? As a result, the demand for bone remains, which could provide clarity on this issue, was extremely high. And, as economic laws suggest, that demand began to be met…
THE DISCOVERY IN A SUSSEX VILLAGE
In February 1912, Arthur Smith Woodward, curator of the geology department at the British Museum, received a letter from Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist already known for several intriguing finds. Dawson wrote that several fragments of a rather strange human skull had been discovered in a gravel pit near the village of Piltdown in Sussex.
Upon further investigation of the site, Dawson found additional remains, including teeth and animal horns from the Pliocene epoch — mastodon, elephant, hippopotamus, beaver, horse, and deer. Most notably, he uncovered half of a lower jaw, which was believed to belong to the same individual as the skull fragments.
By December 1912, Woodward presented these findings to the Geological Society of London, declaring them the long-sought «missing link» between apes and humans. Woodward proposed naming the creature Eoanthropus, or «dawn man».
NEITHER APE NOR HUMAN?
The characteristics of this new find were nearly perfect. The skull closely resembled that of a modern human, and the brain size was similar to that of Anatole France, a Nobel laureate. Could it simply be a modern human? Unlikely — based on the fossilized animal remains found alongside it, the bones were estimated to be about a million years old, fitting the expectations for an ancestor of modern humans.
The most intriguing feature, however, was the jaw, which resembled not a human’s but rather that of a chimpanzee or orangutan. Could it be that the jaw was from an ape and was found nearby purely by coincidence? That didn’t add up either — the teeth in the jaw were clearly not those of an ape, looking more human.
Later, Dawson brought renowned archaeologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to the site, and he found another tooth — a canine that seemed both ape-like and human-like. Dawson also discovered a tool — a digging stick made from a fossilized elephant tusk. A bit later, just two kilometers from the original find, he uncovered more skull fragments and another tooth, again appearing to be either from an ape or a human.
Dawson likely would have found more, but in 1916, he died suddenly from sepsis, and other archaeologists, seemingly less fortunate, never stumbled upon similar discoveries.
THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN?
The scientific community, especially in Britain, enthusiastically embraced the discovery — they had long been waiting for something like this and were genuinely thrilled when it finally arrived. After all, it seemed a bit unfair: France had Cro-Magnons, Germany had Neanderthals, and the British — well, just redheads? But after Dawson’s find, British archaeologists felt a sense of pride: the first Englishman was no less intelligent than the Cro-Magnon and clearly more brilliant than the Neanderthal and significantly older. So perhaps we all descended from him!
No one was more pleased with Piltdown Man than the racists — see, a European lived far earlier than the Asian ape-men and was much more brainy: didn’t we say Europeans are the superior race? Who could doubt that now? Of course, this proves nothing — racists always find ways to twist events as evidence for their cause, though only to convince fellow racists.
However, even serious scientists were delighted with the discovery, viewing it as a powerful argument against the clerics, who insisted that the first humans, Adam and Eve, were created about 7,000 years ago by, well, you know who. However, by that time, it was hardly a significant point, as the geological discoveries of the 19th century had already confidently shown that our planet was much older than clerical estimates.
The main triumph was that Eoanthropus — here he was! Look for yourself: the skull was almost human, but the jaw had a distinctly ape-like quality! Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, who introduced Dawson’s discovery to the scientific world, practically revered the Piltdown skull. He retired and built himself a house near the historic find site, and until he died in 1944, he barely discussed any other topic — only Eoanthropus, which explained so much!
THE KEY TO KNOWLEDGE IS DOUBT
So, did Eoanthropus immediately claim its place as a cornerstone of archaeology without question? Not entirely — some uncomfortable questions did arise. British anthropologist Arthur Keith expressed doubt that the canine tooth discovered later actually belonged to the owner of the Piltdown skull. However, Keith found little support, and his good friend, anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith, even fell out with him for life — such was the intensity of the debates!
The harshest criticism came from German anthropologist Franz Weidenreich, who, like most critics, believed that the skull was human, while the jaw belonged to an ape. He even mockingly called Dawson an unsuccessful puzzle-assembler. The irony was that Weidenreich himself was a prominent scholar, and in 1927, he introduced the world to Sinanthropus — an ancient human who was younger than Pithecanthropus but older than Neanderthals.
Such an authoritative opinion should have been considered credible, but Weidenreich couldn’t overcome the widespread trust in Dawson and the strong desire for his discovery to be legitimate.
For almost 30 years, no serious theory of human origins arose that did not account for Eoanthropus. Everyone awaited a similar discovery, yet no one managed to make one. After Dawson’s death, many ancient human remains were found, but nothing remotely similar to Eoanthropus turned up. It seemed that only Dawson had been so fortunate. Or… but serious scientists found it uncomfortable even to consider such a possibility.
AND THE BOX WAS EASY TO OPEN
The desire to solve the mystery never faded over time. All other findings showed that ancient human jaws evolved to resemble modern humans faster than their skulls — so why was it the opposite for Eoanthropus? Meanwhile, science developed new methods for dating fossils.
Professor Kenneth Oakley discovered that the older a bone is, the more fluoride it absorbs from groundwater. He tested the Piltdown skull, and it turned out to be only about 10,000 years old — just from a time when thoroughly modern humans already walked the Earth!
His colleague Weiner, using another method based on the nitrogen content in bones, confirmed that the skull’s age matched Oakley’s findings. However, the infamous jaw was much younger, likely from a modern species. It was almost certainly the jaw of an orangutan, but what about the teeth?
Finally, someone did what could have been done from the start — examined the teeth closely under a magnifying glass. It turned out that the teeth in the ape’s jaw had been carefully filed down to resemble human teeth. When they analyzed the canine tooth found by Teilhard de Chardin, they discovered it lacked the dentin layer present in any living creature’s tooth, clearly removed by filing.
They also examined the digging stick made from the elephant tusk and found it had been shaped with a metal tool. The reddish color of the bones, typical of ancient finds, turned out to be the result of chemical treatment. Dawson had claimed he treated the first skull fragments for preservation, but who had chemically treated the rest of the bones that were later dug up by others? It was a disaster! And no one could understand why the file marks on the teeth hadn’t been noticed right after the discovery. No one had even considered the possibility…
AUTHOR! AUTHOR!
Who orchestrated all of this? Who scattered fragments of carefully crafted bones in an abandoned quarry, personally handed over some of them to scientists, and then convinced those same scientists to dig up the rest — leaving them fully believing that nothing could be more authentic since they had unearthed the bones themselves? There’s little doubt that the mastermind behind this hoax was lawyer and amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson. His discoveries multiplied during his lifetime, only to cease after his death.
Did he have accomplices? Some suspicion fell on Arthur Smith Woodward, but there is no evidence — he likely was genuinely misled. More puzzling is the involvement of Woodward’s colleague, zoologist Martin Hinton. In 1978, an old trunk containing bones and teeth dyed similarly to the «Piltdown finds» was discovered in Hinton’s apartment. Perhaps he suspected foul play and tried to replicate the fossils to confirm his suspicions. The truth remains unclear.
Teilhard de Chardin? There are such theories — rumors suggest he even wrote a detailed letter about the hoax, allowing it to be published only after all participants had passed away. Yet, though that time has come, the letter has not surfaced…
Another intriguing suspect is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who, in the same year as the discovery of Eoanthropus, published The Lost World, featuring striking plot parallels to the Piltdown story. Some say he was angered by scientists who mocked his interest in spiritualism and sought to mock them in return. But if that’s the case, why didn’t he reveal his joke?
In all likelihood, this entire hoax was the work of one provincial lawyer and amateur archaeologist, desperate for fame and recognition at any cost. Dawson himself may not be particularly fascinating — people like him come and go. The real mystery is how the prominent, respected, and educated scientific community allowed itself to be fooled for nearly forty years. This is a far more compelling question, one worth exploring, for such tricks could well happen again…
LITERATURE
- Ya. Eidelman. I Seek an Ancestor. Moscow, «Molodaya Gvardiya», 1970, 240 pages.
- Miles Russell. Piltdown Man: The Secret Life of Charles Dawson (Revealing History). NJ, «Tempus», 2004, 288 pages.
