일반명 : 필트다운인(에오안트로푸스 도스니)

학  명 : Piltdown man (Eoanthropus dawsoni)

시  대 : 3.5 MYA.

발견지역 : Piltdown near Sussex, England

발견시기 : 1912

발견자 : Charles Dawson

발  표 : 필트다운맨 (1912년 영국 Sussex주 Piltdown에서 두개골이 발견되었으나 후에 가짜로 판명됨) 에오안트로푸스 도스니(Eoanthropus dawsoni)의미는 발견자이름

Piltdown Man Skull 1912 Fraud. This skull is a replica of Dawson's so-called "Dawn Man," which had been unearthed in a gravel pit at Piltdown near Sussex, England, by Charles Dawson in 1912. The find consisted of a modern appearing cranium, with a modern sized brain, combined with a primitive apelike jaw, and was found near the teeth of extinct animals dated at 5 million years old. For 40 years the skull bones of "Dawn Man" were considered genuine and hindered understanding of human evolution by supporting the biased view that a large brain led the evolutionary way toward modern humans. By 1953, the application of fluorine analysis and the work of two anatomists and an archeologist exposed Piltdown Man as a hoax. The "find" turned out to be a modern appearing human cranium and the mandible of a modern orangutan, buried along with the bones of the extinct animals. Unfortunately, this hoax misdirected anthropologists for some time, contributing to the original rejection of the Taung Child (which had a jaw of human-like features and an ape-sized brain, a reversal of the pattern observed in English Piltdown Man) and also suggesting that pre-sapiens existed in Europe, a view which has since been discredited. The black portions of the skull indicate the "original" find. The rest is a recreation commissioned by Bone Clones® in 2000. Stand available.

Piltdown Man

From Wikipedia

The portrait painted by John Cooke in 1915. Back row (from left): F O Barlow, G Elliot Smith, Charles Dawson, Arthur Smith Woodward. Front row: A S Underwood, Arthur Keith, W P Pycraft, and Sir Ray Lankester.

The "Piltdown Man" is a famous hoax consisting of fragments of a skull and jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex. The fragments were thought by many experts of the day to be the fossilised remains of a hitherto unknown form of early human. The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni ("Dawson's dawn-man", after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen.

The significance of the specimen remained the subject of controversy until it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of the lower jawbone of an orangutan combined with the skull of a fully developed, modern man.

The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most famous archaeological hoax in history. It has been prominent for two reasons: the attention paid to the issue of human evolution, and the length of time (more than 40 years) that elapsed from its discovery to its exposure as a forgery.