The Day the Universe Changed - James Burke [159]
Before any such research can be carried out, it is necessary first to establish the existence of the phenomena to be investigated. Evidence must be gathered. But this evidence is accepted or rejected according to the value placed on it by the structure.
At the beginning of this century the accepted view of natural history was Darwinian. The only flaw in his theory, however, was that it lacked evidence of an intermediary species between ape and man. If the ‘missing link’could be found, the theory would be complete.
Piltdown Man is examined and accepted by leading members of the scientific community. Charles Dawson, the probable instigator of the hoax, is standing behind the experts, second from right.
In February 1912 a country solicitor and amateur palaeontologist called Charles Dawson wrote to the keeper of the Department of Geology at the British Museum, Arthur Woodward, to say that he had made an extraordinary fossil find in a gravel quarry in Sussex. It was, said Dawson, an unusually thick skull which might prove to be the oldest human remains yet found, since it had been discovered in a layer dating from the Pleistocene period. Further digging at the quarry revealed several fossilised animal teeth whose type - mastodon, hippopotamus, and so on - confirmed the dating of the skull. Close by the teeth were found flint tools worked by human hand.
Later in the same year a jawbone was found in the quarry. The discovery rocked the palaeontological establishment because the jaw appeared to be that of an ape, even though it had two molars which were worn down in a pattern that could only be produced by a freely moving jaw. Humans have freely moving jaws, whereas apes do not. The position of the jawbone in the quarry suggested strongly that it had come from the skull. Since the Darwinian model presumed that evolution would first enhance the skull and later the jaw, this was evidently the ‘missing link’everybody was looking for. The excitement was intense.
All that prevented complete identification was a missing canine tooth. If one could be found also showing evidence of human wear and if it did not project above the level of the other teeth, then, however apelike the jawbone, the entire skull would be human. Models were made of what the canine should look like. On 30 August 1913, near the site of the jawbone, a tooth was found. It fitted the predictions exactly. There was jubilation. Here, indeed, was the link between ape and man foretold by Darwin. When a second, similar skull and jaw were found in 1915, two miles from the original site, the last remnants of doubt dissolved.
From the mid 1920s on, fossil men were discovered in Africa, Java and China. All of them, however, revealed developments opposite to those shown by the Sussex discovery. Their brain cavity was still apelike, whereas their features had evolved. By 1944 it was concluded that there had been two distinct evolutionary lines leading to man; but the only examples from one of the lines were the Sussex skulls. Confusion reigned.
Then newly developed fluorine tests were made on the Sussex bones and it was discovered that they were a fraud. The bones were probably medieval in origin. What is more, the skull and jaw had been stained with iron to give the appearance of great age. The molars had been filed down to simulate human wear, and the canine tooth had also been filed and painted brown. The animal bones found near the skull were discovered to be from various parts of the world and from animals which would never have congregated in one spot at any time in history. The skull of Piltdown Man was a hoax.
The fact that at the time of the discoveries techniques were available to identify iron-staining, filing and above all the presence of oil paint, shows how strongly the structure of an evolutionary line which was expected to contain a ‘missing link’influenced the acceptance of fraudulent evidence. Even the presence in the gravel pit of a fossilised elephant bone carved in the shape of a cricket bat failed to alert