Piltdown hoax was a great deception in the study of prehistoric people. Between 1908 and 1912, parts of a skull and of a jawbone were found in a gravel pit at Piltdown in Sussex, England. Some scientists believed the remains came from a form of human being who lived 250,000 years ago. Others disagreed. But the Piltdown “fossil” became famous as a “missing link” between physically modern human beings and the apes.
After years of controversy, scientists used newly developed chemical tests on the remains. They learned that the jaw came from a modern ape and that the human skull was much younger than the gravel in which it had been found. In 1955, radiocarbon tests dated the skull at A.D. 1230. Apparently, a prankster had buried an orangutan’s jaw and a skull from a medieval cemetery. The jaw had been stained to make it look old and the teeth filed to make them look human.
