the piltdown man hoax

The Piltdown man hoax is one of the most famous hoaxes of our time. At first, the discovery of parts of a skull and jawbone was one of thee greatest discoveries of its time; however; over forty years later, the fossils in question were discovered to be a fraud. In 1912, when these remains were found they were thought to be remains of some unknown form of early human. Experts in the field believed that the discovery of these fragments would connect the evolution of man from ape, the were the “missing link.” After more research had been done to further prove how these fossils connected the evolution of man, the findings no longer fit in. The old bones of this unknown creature suddenly had no place in the human family tree. It was in 1953 when the truth about the Piltdown man came out. As time went on new scientific experiments and tests became available. These new techniques were used on the Piltdown man’s fossils and revealed that the fossils were not from far enough back to be what they were thought to be when the were first discovered, over forty years ago. ¬¬

http://www.tiac.net/~cri_a/piltdown/piltdown.html