Editing Piltdown Man (section)

==Find==
[[Image:Piltdown man.jpg|thumb|Piltdown Man skull reconstruction]]
At a meeting of the [[Geological Society of London]] on 18 December 1912, Charles Dawson claimed that a workman at the Piltdown gravel pit had given him a fragment of the skull four years earlier. According to Dawson, workmen at the site discovered the skull shortly before his visit and broke it up in the belief that it was a fossilised [[coconut]]. Revisiting the site on several occasions, Dawson found further fragments of the skull and took them to [[Arthur Smith Woodward]], keeper of the geological department at the [[British Museum]]. Greatly interested by the finds, Woodward accompanied Dawson to the site. Though the two worked together between June and September 1912, Dawson alone recovered more skull fragments and half of the lower jaw.<ref name = lewin>{{citation |first=Roger |last=Lewin |author-link=Roger Lewin |url=https://archive.org/details/bonesofcontentio00lewi |title=Bones of Contention |year=1987 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-671-52688-7|url-access=registration }}</ref><ref>{{Citation | title=Piltdown Man: The Secret Life of Charles Dawson | first=Miles |last=Russell | publisher=Tempus, Stroud | year=2003 | pages=157–71}}</ref> The skull unearthed in 1908 was the only find discovered [[In situ#Archaeology|in situ]], with most of the other pieces found in the gravel pit's spoil heaps. French Jesuit [[Paleontology|paleontologist]] and [[geologist]] [[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]] participated in the uncovering of the Piltdown skull with Woodward.<ref>{{Google books|o6g2tvN0nJoC|Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History|keywords=|text=|plainurl=| pages=201–226}}</ref>

At the same meeting, Woodward announced that a reconstruction of the fragments indicated that the skull was in many ways similar to that of a modern human, except for the [[occiput]] (the part of the skull that sits on the [[Vertebral column|spinal column]]), and [[brain size]], which was about two-thirds that of a modern human. He went on to indicate that, save for two human-like [[Molar (tooth)|molar]] teeth, the jaw bone was indistinguishable from that of a modern, young [[Common chimpanzee|chimpanzee]]. From the British Museum's reconstruction of the skull, Woodward proposed that Piltdown Man represented an evolutionary [[Transitional fossil#Missing links|missing link]] between apes and humans, since the combination of a human-like cranium with an ape-like jaw tended to support the notion then prevailing in England that human evolution began with the brain.
[[File:PSM V82 D210 Reconstruction of Eoanthropus dawsoni.png|thumb|left|upright|A 1913 reconstruction of "''Eoanthropus dawsoni''"]] The find was considered legitimate by [[Otto Schoetensack]] who had discovered the [[Homo heidelbergensis|Heidelberg fossils]] just a few years earlier; he described it as being the best evidence for an ape-like ancestor of modern humans.<ref>Russell, Miles. 2012. The Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed. History press. p. 81</ref> Almost from the outset, Woodward's reconstruction of the Piltdown fragments was strongly challenged by some researchers. At the [[Royal College of Surgeons of England|Royal College of Surgeons]], copies of the same fragments used by the British Museum in their reconstruction were used to produce an entirely different model, one that in brain size and other features resembled a modern human. This reconstruction, by [[Arthur Keith]], was called ''Homo piltdownensis'' in reflection of its more human appearance.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Keith | first1 = A | year = 1914 | title = The Significance of the Skull at Piltdown | journal = Bedrock | volume = 2 | pages = 435–53 }}</ref> 

Woodward's reconstruction included ape-like [[Canine tooth|canine teeth]], which was itself controversial. In August 1913, Woodward, Dawson and Teilhard de Chardin began a systematic search of the spoil heaps specifically to find the missing canines. Teilhard de Chardin soon found a canine that, according to Woodward, fitted the jaw perfectly. A few days later, Teilhard de Chardin moved to France and took no further part in the discoveries. Noting that the tooth "corresponds exactly with that of an ape",<ref>{{cite journal |last=Woodward |first=A. Smith |author-link=Arthur Smith Woodward |url=http://www.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_report_finds/note_pilt_man.html |journal=The Geological Magazine |title=Note on the Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus Dawsoni) |year=1913 |doi=10.1017/S0016756800127426 |volume=10 |issue=10 |pages=433–34 |access-date=31 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120813124555/http://www.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_report_finds/note_pilt_man.html |archive-date=13 August 2012 |url-status=live|bibcode=1913GeoM...10..433W }}</ref> Woodward expected the find to end any dispute over his reconstruction of the skull. However, Keith attacked the find. Keith pointed out that human molars are the result of side to side movement when chewing. The canine in the Piltdown jaw was impossible as it prevented side to side movement. To explain the wear on the molar teeth, the canine could not have been any higher than the molars. [[Grafton Elliot Smith]], a fellow anthropologist, sided with Woodward, and at the next Royal Society meeting claimed that Keith's opposition was motivated entirely by ambition. Keith later recalled, "Such was the end of our long friendship."<ref name=unraveling>{{cite book |author=Walsh, John E. |year=1996 |title=Unraveling Piltdown: The Science Fraud of the Century and its Solution |publisher=[[Random House]] |isbn=978-0-679-44444-2}}</ref>

As early as 1913, [[David Waterston (anatomist)|David Waterston]] of [[King's College London]] published in ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' his conclusion that the sample consisted of an ape mandible and human skull.<ref name="Gould"/> Likewise, French [[paleontologist]] [[Marcellin Boule]] concluded the same in 1915. A third opinion from the American [[zoologist]] [[Gerrit Smith Miller Jr.]] concluded that Piltdown's jaw came from a fossil ape. In 1923, [[Franz Weidenreich]] examined the remains and correctly reported that they consisted of a modern human cranium and an [[orangutan]] jaw with filed-down teeth.<ref>{{cite book |last=MacRitchie |first=Finlay |year=2011 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ja351EkKUDsC&pg=PA30 |title=Scientific Research as a Career |publisher=CRC Press |page=30 |isbn=978-1439869659}}</ref>

===Sheffield Park find===
In 1915, Dawson claimed to have found three fragments of a second skull (Piltdown II) at a new site about {{convert|2|mi|km|spell=in}} away from the original finds.<ref name=lewin/> Woodward attempted several times to elicit the location from Dawson, but was unsuccessful. So far as is known, the site was never identified and the finds appear largely undocumented. Woodward did not present the new finds to the Society until five months after Dawson's death in August 1916 and deliberately implied that he knew where they had been found. In 1921, [[Henry Fairfield Osborn]], President of the [[American Museum of Natural History]], examined the Piltdown and Sheffield Park finds and declared that the jaw and skull belonged together "without question" and that the Sheffield Park fragments "were exactly those which we should have selected to confirm the comparison with the original [[Type (biology)|type]]."<ref name=unraveling/>

The Sheffield Park finds were taken as proof of the authenticity of the Piltdown Man; it may have been chance that brought an ape's jaw and a human skull together, but the odds of it happening twice were slim. Even Keith conceded to this new evidence, though he still harboured personal doubts.<ref>{{cite book |last=Craddock |first=Paul |year=2012 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xYHjpNjimsoC&pg=PT615 |title=Scientific Investigation of Copies, Fakes and Forgeries |publisher=CRC Press |isbn=978-1-136-43601-7}}</ref>