This piece of skull and separate jaw was the only clear evidence that man was descended from an apelike creature. In 1953, Kenneth Oakley (British Museum geologist), Joseph Weiner (Oxford University anthropologist), and Le Gros Clark (anatomy professor at Oxford) managed to get their hands on the Piltdown skull and jaw–and proved it to be a total forgery. The newly developed fluorine test revealed the bones to be quite recent. Additional research showed the bones had been stained with bichromate, to make them appear aged. Drillings into the bone produced shavings instead of ancient powder. The canine tooth was found to have been filed and stained. Weiner published a book about the Piltdown forgery in 1955 (William L. Straus, Jr., “The Great Piltdown Hoax,” Science, February 26, 1954; Robert Silverberg, Scientists and Scoundrels: A Book of Hoaxes, 1965).
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