A Famous Fake Turns Fifty

Fifty years ago this week The Natural History Museum in London discovered that one of their star exhibits was in fact a fake.

The Piltdown Skull had been on display at the museum since 1912. The skull was part of a collection of fossilized remains that were found in Sussex by a solicitor called Charles Dawson.

Photo: this model was made by studying the Piltdown bones, and was meant to show how the man would have looked when he was alive.
© The Natural History Museum.

The skull was thought to be 500,000 years old. Scientists and the public were fascinated. They thought they were seeing evidence of our ancient ancestors - the face of early man.

However, over time scientific tests became more and more accurate until finally, in 1953, it was discovered that the bones were a very clever hoax.

They were real bones, but the jaw and the skull sections came from different creatures and were much younger than had been thought.

The jawbone belonged to a modern ape and had been stained and filed to make it look old. The skull was from a human but was only 50,000 years old, not 500,000. The greatest mystery of all is that to this day nobody knows who was behind the hoax.

Photo: here a scientist examines the Piltdown bones.
© The Natural History Museum.

The discovery of the fake made headline news around the world back in 1953, and fifty years on still makes a good story! On Tuesday November 25 Natural History Museum scientists will be showing off the fossils in a special debate at the museum.

The BBC have made a Timewatch documentary about the bones, showing on Friday November 21. Click on this link to see the BBC's Piltdown Man website.

Piltdown Man isn't the only hoax that has gripped the worlds of science and archaeology. Have you ever heard of the Beringer Forgeries? Or the time someone put a modern housefly inside a piece of amber and claimed it was an important ancient fossil?

Photo: this meeting took place in 1954 to discuss the hoax.
© The Natural History Museum.

The Darwin Centre, the Natural History Museum's new research and storage centre, is putting on a series of talks next week, from November 25 to November 30 2003, every day at 2.30 (plus extras at 12.30 on the Saturday and Sunday).

The talks are all about fantastic fakes and tricky hoaxes. From mystery dodos to the Apollo moon landings, these talks will set you wondering just what to believe.