Editing Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (section)

=== Paleontology ===
From 1912 to 1914, Teilhard began his [[paleontology|palaeontology]] education by working in the laboratory of the [[National Museum of Natural History, France|French National Museum of Natural History]], studying the [[mammal]]s of the middle [[Tertiary]] period. Later he studied elsewhere in Europe. This included spending 5 days over the course of a 3-month period in the middle of 1913 as a volunteer assistant helping to dig with [[Arthur Smith Woodward]] and [[Charles Dawson]] at the [[Piltdown]] site. Teilhard’s brief time assisting with digging there occurred many months after the discovery of the first fragments of the fraudulent "[[Piltdown Man]]".{{cn|date=September 2024}} [[Stephen Jay Gould]] judged that [[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]] conspired with Dawson in the Piltdown forgery.<ref>{{Google books|o6g2tvN0nJoC|Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History|keywords=|text=|plainurl=}}</ref> Most Teilhard experts (including all three Teilhard biographers) and many scientists (including the scientists who uncovered the hoax and investigated it) have rejected the suggestion that he participated, and say that he did not.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Teilhard and the Pildown "Hoax" |url=http://www.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/teilhard_de_chardin/Chardin_defend/teilhardandpilthoax(lukas).html |access-date=2017-12-14 |website=www.clarku.edu |archive-date=14 June 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120614033556/http://www.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/Teilhard_de_Chardin/Chardin_defend/teilhardandpilthoax(lukas).html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Wayman |first=Erin |title=How to Solve Human Evolution's Greatest Hoax |language=en |work=Smithsonian |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-to-solve-human-evolutions-greatest-hoax-167921335/ |access-date=2017-12-14}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Costello |first=Peter |date=September 1981 |title=The Piltdown Puzzle, article in New Scientist |url=https://www2.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/Teilhard_de_Chardin/Chardin_defend/piltpuzzle.html |access-date=2023-12-19 |website=www2.clarku.edu |archive-date=28 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220628204804/http://www2.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/Teilhard_de_Chardin/Chardin_defend/piltpuzzle.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=King |first=Thomas M. |date=1983 |title=Teilhard and Piltdown |url=https://www2.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/Teilhard_de_Chardin/Chardin_defend/teilhardandpilt.html |access-date=2023-12-19 |website=www2.clarku.edu |archive-date=19 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231219132044/https://www2.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_prim_suspects/Teilhard_de_Chardin/Chardin_defend/teilhardandpilt.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>  

Anthropologist [[Birx, H. James|H. James Birx]] wrote that Teilhard "had questioned the validity of this fossil evidence from the very beginning, one positive result was that the young geologist and seminarian now became particularly interested in palaeoanthropology as the science of fossil hominids.“<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Birx |first=H. James |date=1999 |title=The Phenomenon of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |url=https://huumanists.org/publications/journal/phenomenon-pierre-teilhard-de-chardin |access-date=2023-12-24 |website=UU Humanist Association |language=en}}</ref>  [[Marcellin Boule]], an [[palaeontologist]] and [[anthropologist]], who as early as 1915 had recognized the non-[[hominid]] origins of the Piltdown finds, gradually guided Teilhard towards human paleontology. Boule was the editor of the journal ''L’Anthropologie'' and the founder of two other scientific journals. He was also a professor at the Parisian [[National Museum of Natural History, France|Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle]] for 34 years, and for many years director of the museum's Institute of Human Paleontology.  

It was there that Teilhard became a friend of [[Henri Breuil]], a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] [[priest]], [[archaeologist]], [[anthropologist]], [[ethnologist]] and [[geologist]]. In 1913, Teilhard and Breuil did excavations at the prehistoric painted [[Cave of El Castillo]] in Spain. The cave contains the oldest known cave painting in the world. The site is divided into about 19 archeological layers in a sequence beginning in the [[Proto-Aurignacian]] and ending in the [[Bronze Age]]. 

Later after his return to China in 1926, Teilhard was hired by the Cenozoic Laboratory at the Peking Union Medical College. Starting in 1928, he joined other geologists and palaeontologists to excavate the sedimentary layers in the Western Hills near Zhoukoudian. At this site, the scientists discovered the so-called Peking man (Sinanthropus pekinensis), a fossil hominid dating back at least 350,000 years, which is part of the Homo erectus phase of human evolution. Teilhard became world-known as a result of his accessible explanations of the Sinanthropus discovery. He also himself made major contributions to the geology of this site. Teilhard's long stay in China gave him more time to think and write about evolution, as well as continue his scientific research.<ref name=":4" /> 

After the [[Peking Man]] discoveries, Breuil joined Teilhard at the site in 1931 and confirmed the presence of stone tools.