Hostname: page-component-77c78cf97d-4gwwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-24T19:01:54.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Piltdown problem reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Kenneth P. Oakley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Originally there were two main points of controversy about Piltdown. Did the Piltdown cranium and the Piltdown jaw-bone (mandible) represent one creature, ‘Eoanthropus’ as Smith Woodward inferred; or did they belong to two creatures, the cranium that of a man and the jaw-bone that of an ape, as David Waterston, Gerrit Miller and A. T. Marston believed? The second point of controversy concerned the antiquity of the specimens.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 50 , Issue 197 , March 1976 , pp. 9 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bowie, S. H. U., and Davidson, C. F.. 1955. The radioactivity of the Piltdown fossils, Bull, Br. Mus. Nat. Hist. (Geol.), 2, 276–82.Google Scholar
Claringbull, G. F., and Hey, M. H.. 1955. The X-ray crystallography of the Piltdown fossils, Bull. Br. Mus. Nat. Hist. (Geol.), 2, 268–70.Google Scholar
Dawson, C. and Woodward, A. S.. 1913. On the discovery of a Palaeolithic skull and mandible in the flint-bearing gravel overlying the Wealden (Hastings Beds) at Piltdown, Fletching (Sussex), Q. Jl. Geol. Soc. Lond., 69, 117–51.Google Scholar
Dawson, C. and Woodward, A. S.. 1914. Supplementary note on the discovery of a Palaeolithic skull and mandible at Piltdown (Sussex), Q. Jl. Geol. Soc. Lond., LXX, 82–99.Google Scholar
Edmunds, F. H. 1955. The geology of the Piltdown neighbourhood, Bull. Br. Mus. Nat. Hist. (Geol.), 2, 273–5.Google Scholar
Everett, A. H. 1879. Second quarterly report on the Bornean Cave explorations, Rep. Br. Ass. Advmt. Sci. (Sheffield), 149.Google Scholar
Oakley, K. P., and Hoskins, C. R.. 1950. New evidence on the antiquity of Piltdown Man, Nature, 165, 379–82.Google Scholar
Oakley, K. P., and Groves, C. P.. 1970. Piltdown Man: The realization of fraudulence, Science, 169, 789.Google Scholar
Osborn, H. F. 1927. Matt rises to Parnassus (Princeton).Google Scholar
Teilhard de Chardin, P. 1920. Le cas de l’homme de Piltdown, Revue de Questions Scientifigues, LXXII, 149–55.Google Scholar
Vries, H. DE and Oakley, K. P.. 1959. Radiocarbon dating of the Piltdown skull and jaw, Nature, 184, 224–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiner, J. S. 1955. The Piltdown forgery (Oxford).Google Scholar
Weiner, J. S., Oakley, K. P. and Le Gros Clark, W. E., 1953. The solution of the Piltdown problem, Bull. Br. Mus. Nat. Hist. (Geol.), 139–46.Google Scholar
Weiner, J. S., Le Gros Clark, W. E., Oakley, K. P., Fryd, C. F. M., Claringbull, G. F., Hey, M. H., Werner, A. E. A., Plesters, R. J., Edmunds, F. H., Bowie, S. H. U., Baynescope, C. F. and Davidson, A. D., 1955. Further contributions to the solution of the Piltdown problem, Bull, Br. Mus. Nat. Hist. (Geol.), 2, 225–87.Google Scholar
Woodward, A. S. 1917. On a second skull from the Piltdown Gravel, Q. Jl. Geol. Soc. Lond., LIII, 1–10.Google Scholar
Woodward, A. S. 1948. The earliest Englishman (London).Google Scholar