Editing Piltdown Man (section)

===Scientific investigation===

From the outset, some scientists expressed scepticism about the Piltdown find (see above). [[Gerrit Smith Miller Jr.]], for example, observed in 1915 that "deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the hazards of deposition in so breaking the fossils as to give free scope to individual judgment in fitting the parts together".<ref>{{Citation | last=Miller | first=Gerrit S. | title=The Jaw of the Piltdown Man| journal= Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections | volume=65 | issue=12 | pages=596 | date=24 November 1915 | bibcode=1917JG.....25..596M | doi=10.1086/622528 }}</ref> In the decades prior to its exposure as a forgery in 1953, scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as an enigmatic aberration, inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere.<ref name=lewin/>

In November 1953, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine published evidence, gathered variously by [[Kenneth Page Oakley]], [[Wilfrid Le Gros Clark|Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark]] and [[Joseph Weiner]], proving that Piltdown Man was a forgery<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,823171,00.html End as a Man. ''Time Magazine'' 30 Nov 1953] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101030234043/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0%2C9171%2C823171%2C00.html |date=30 October 2010 }} retrieved 11 November 2010</ref> and demonstrating that the fossil was a composite of three distinct species. It consisted of a human skull of medieval age, the 500-year-old lower jaw of an [[orangutan]] and [[Common chimpanzee|chimpanzee]] fossil teeth. Someone had created the appearance of age by staining the bones with an iron solution and [[chromic acid]]. Microscopic examination revealed file-marks on the teeth, and it was deduced from this that someone had modified the teeth to a shape more suited to a human diet.

The Piltdown Man hoax succeeded so well because, at the time of its discovery, the scientific establishment believed that the large modern brain preceded the modern [[omnivore|omnivorous]] diet, and the forgery provided exactly that evidence. [[Stephen Jay Gould]] argued that nationalism and cultural prejudice played a role in the ready acceptance of Piltdown Man as genuine, because it satisfied European expectations that the earliest humans would be found in [[Eurasia]], and the British in particular wanted a "first Briton" to set against fossil hominids found elsewhere in Europe.<ref name=Gould>{{cite book |first=Stephen J. |last=Gould |author-link=Stephen J. Gould |title=The Panda's Thumb |year=1980 |publisher=W. W. Norton |pages=[https://archive.org/details/pandasthumbmorer00goul/page/108 108–24] |isbn=978-0-393-01380-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/pandasthumbmorer00goul/page/108 }}</ref>