Science Fact Finder | General Science and Technology - What Was The World's Greatest Fraud?

What was the world's greatest fraud?

The world's greatest fraud was "Piltdown," the name given to the remains of a supposed prehistoric human. The skull of this would-be precursor to Homo sapiens was "discovered" in a gravel formation at Piltdown Commons, near Lewes, in southern England in 1912. It was later discovered that someone had combined the jaw of an ape with skull fragments of a modern human. They even filed the ape's teeth to give them a wear pattern similar to human teeth.

The hoaxer created a product that looked so authentic that scientists argued over Piltdown for about 40 years. It wasn't until chemical investigations during the 1950s that the top of the skull and the jaw were shown to be of different ages.

The initiator of the hoax has never been identified. For years, the discoverer of the skull, William Dawson, was the main suspect along with Teilhard de Chardin, his assistant. Sir...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass