Top scientist 'aided Piltdown hoax’

Press, 14 July 1980, Page 6

Top scientist 'aided Piltdown hoax’

NZPA-Reuter New York ; Pierre Teilhard de Charj din, the French priest and; (popular Roman Catholic] I philosopher, helped pul) off ’ the audacious Piltdown Man' i hoax in Britain nearly 70; (years ago, according to an| (American palaeontologist. ' [ Professor Stephen Jay. Gould, of Harvard in an; article published in "Natural I History,” magazine of the; American Museum of Natural History, said the Jesuit I joined in the hoax with air a m a t e u r archeologist,' (Charles Dawson, as a joke. ] “What an irresistible ideal i to salt the English soil with! ; this preposterous com-' bination of a human skull and an ape’s jaw and see what the pros could make of it,” Professor Gould wrote. Mr Dawson produced in 1912 specimens he said he found in a quarry at Pilt-i down, Sussex. They were] supposed to belong to a’ “Piltdown Man” who lived, 200,000 to one million years ago and provide a missing! step in man’s development. ' Many scientists doubted the specimen’s authenticity’ immediately, and tests in the l 1950 s proved that the bonesi’

; were relatively modern — ■ only 50,000 years old. !iX-raj r s found that the jaw ;and a tooth of the Piltdown ’Man had been altered. I “We must recast Piltdown as a joke that went too far, | not as a ‘ malicious attempt ’ to defraud,” Professor Gould .said. j Once news of Piltdown ! Man spread, "any admission (on Teilhard’s part would (surely have wrecked irrevoi cablv the professional career (he had desired so greatly .. . ‘and at whose treshold he i now stood.” Professor Gould I said. I Professor Gould said he 'based his conclusion about Teilhard on his writings and correspondence. including letters to Kenneth Oakley, curator emeritus at the British Museum, who helped prove Piltdown a hoax. i Professor Gould said he ’also interviewed Mr Oakley. In one letter Teilhard ’ — ; who assisted in the discovery in 1929 of the auI thentic Peking Man fossils ■in China — said he and Dawson had “manufactured” 1 the Piltdown samples, (according to Professor I Gould.