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Piltdown Man

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Oddity

The Resume

    (February 1912-November 1953)
    Born in Piltdown, East Sussex, England, United Kingdom
    Discovered in a gravel pit by Charles Dawson
    Had a human-like skull and ape-like jaw
    Initially hailed as a 'missing link' between men and apes
    Initially thought to be between 350,000 and 500,000 years old
    Given the scientific name Eoanthropus dawsoni (Dawson's dawn man)
    Revealed to be a forgery by chemical testing (1953)

Why Piltdown Man might be annoying:

    It actually consisted of a human skull, an orangutan jawbone and teeth from a chimpanzee, all stained to create the appearance of great age.
    Even in 1912, techniques existed that would have proven it to be a forgery, but it was not tested rigorously.
    It was accepted partly because it fit with pre-existing (and, as it would turn out, inaccurate) theories about human evolution.
    When the first Australopithecine fossils were discovered in the 1920s; they were ignored because they did not resemble Piltdown Man.
    A few years before it was exposed as a hoax, Sherwood Washburn noted, 'You could [only] make sense of human evolution if you didn't try to put Piltdown into it.'
    Creationists love to trot it out to ridicule scientists.

Why Piltdown Man might not be annoying:

    Many scientists correctly argued that the skull and jaw came from different animals.
    Most of them, suspecting an accidental mixing of two specimens rather than fraud, withdrew their objections when Dawson 'discovered' an additional set of fossils (1917).
    A pub near the discovery site was named the Pitdown Man in its honor.

Credit: C. Fishel


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Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 8 Votes: 37.50% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 6 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 18 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 16 Votes: 12.50% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 80 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 5 Votes: 20.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 6 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 10 Votes: 40.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 20 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 14 Votes: 64.29% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 16 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 60 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 20 Votes: 65.00% Annoying
    In 2008, Out of 45 Votes: 71.11% Annoying
    In 2007, Out of 39 Votes: 74.36% Annoying