In 1912, amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson claimed that he had discovered the “missing link” between early apes and man in Piltdown, near Uckfield.
Despite some initial scepticism, the remains were broadly accepted for many years, and the falsity of the hoax was only definitively demonstrated in 1953.
Piltdown man proved to be pieced together from contemporary human skull fragments, chimpanzee teeth and what is now thought to be a female orangutan jaw.
The Piltdown man might have actually been partly female (Image: SWNS)
In a study published on January 1, modern researchers have presented a digital reconstruction of the fake human ancestor from 500,000 years ago.
The team of archaeologists, and forensic expert and 3D illustrator Cícero Moraes, composed a model to replicate the specimen presented by Charles Dawson.
The researchers were able to reference a November 1953 Time magazine article which published evidence demonstrating that the Man was a composite of the three distinct species.
Cícero Moraes illustration mirrors the exposé by incorporating a human skull of medieval age, the 500-year-old lower jaw of an orangutan and chimpanzee fossil teeth.
The digital reconstruction of the Piltdown man was created using human skull fragments, chimpanzee teeth and female orangutan jaw (Image: SWNS)
The researchers also shed doubt on what gender the specimen would prove to be.
They concluded: “Furthermore, it highlighted the potential for the jaw of a female orangutan to have been used as a basis in the fossil forgery process.
“Combining this with the delicate aspects of the skull, it presents the possibility that it is, in fact, not a man, but a Piltdown woman.”
The Piltdown man was one of the biggest scientific hoaxes of the 20th century (Image: SWNS)
They added: “This article demonstrated that the use of free tools, in addition to a wide collection available on the internet, allows independent researchers to study the anatomy of recognised fraudulent cases, in order to cooperate with the corroboration of published studies and the increase of new information.”
Dr Isabelle De Groote an expert in human evolution at Liverpool John Moores University who led a 2016 study on the Piltdown man, said: “Although multiple individuals have been accused of producing the fake fossils, our analyses to understand the modus operandi show consistency between all the different specimens and on both sites,” she said.
“It is clear from our analysis that this work was likely all carried out by one forger: Charles Dawson.”
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