Written in an easy, intelligible fashion this book guides you through one of anthropology’s most fascinating mysteries.
Discovered in 1912 the Piltdown bones were hailed as the missing link between modern humans and their earliest ancestors. Studied by some of the most imminent scientists of the day the bones were accepted as part of the human lineage until 1953 when they were shown to be forgeries. An investigation conducted at the time by the scientist who had uncovered the hoax reached the
conclusion that the discoverer of the Piltdown bones, a Mr. Charles Dawson, was the probably hoaxer.
This conclusion proved too simple for many and over the years several other names have been put forth as the perpetrator, sometimes accompanied by the most far fetched of conspiracies theories. Men of the stature of Arthur Smith Woodward, Sir Arthur Keith, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Martin A. C. Hinton all have had their reputations impugned on the flimsiest of evidence and John Evangelist Walsh’s book does much to clear these people’s names. With no axe to grind he subjects the claims, both pro and con, of each suspect to a combination of relentless logic and common sense. Extremely well researched he methodically shifts the evidence, demolishing many of the wilder claims in the process, to lead you directly to the culprit. This is the definitive book on the Piltdown Hoax. Read it and you will know who the hoaxer was.