For more than 40 years; 40 years, the Piltdown skull bones fooled the archaeological science establishment. Once, it had been the most spectacular discovery filling ‘the missing link’ between modern humans and our ape-like ancestors. An awaited solution to Darwin’s evolution of species. Oh dear fooleries, fascinating and bitter, whom shall your tales befriend but the curious humans? In 40 years, it would all be an utter lie, the fossils turning into a hoax, jolting scientists left and right. Piltdown man goes down as one of the most enigmatic, successful, and celebrated fraud cases that has seen light on this Earth.

A study in Piltdown

The first scene of this tale opens at Barkham Manor in Piltdown, a village near East Sussex in England. Digging deeper and deeper into the Wealden gravel around the manor grounds, the workers who were tasked with repairing roads, sparked the opportunity for discovery, that of parts of a skull and jawbone that oddly belonged together.

One Mr. Charles Dawson, amateur archaeologist, geologist, and lawyer, enters the scene. Like most archaeologists at the time who were enamoured by evolutionary theory, Dawson too naturally fell in line and was deep on the lookout for artifactual remains of prehistoric humans. He was influential in Sussex, having made several discoveries and contributions to both geology and archaeology. According to him, he had noticed the gravel looked unusual (the presence of brown flints gave it away). Soon enough, the workers found a fossil bone. Charles Dawson was now sure that he would uncover something remarkable in this gravel pit and spent years searching.

Some years go by. The scene remains in the gravel pits. In 1911, Dawson found a prehistoric human cranium with an ape-like jaw along with some more fossil pieces. Information surrounding the discovery is quite fuzzy as the Piltdown saga investigators are not agreed on a single thread of facts. What’s certain though is Dawson sent all these fossil pieces to the British Museum (now Natural History Museum) in London, claiming that he found it from the gravel pit. The experts at the museum were all over the moon at this novel discovery — a human-like and ape-like fossil. It was given the name — the Piltdown Man.

At the museum, enter Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology. Dawson worked with him for his studies and further excavation of the site (tooth fossils of hippopotamus, elephant, and more were dug up!). In December 1912, the new fossil hominin: Eoanthropus dawsoni (Dawson’s dawn man), was officially announced to the world. It had been a field day for the media.

The Missing Link

When Darwin wrote his revolutionary On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection, Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (yes, yes, that’s the full title!) in 1859, he did not say that we evolved directly from apes. He had said that both humans and animals share a common ancestor, a fundamental understanding now. Our new ancestor stood between man and ape. Charles Dawson thought he had found the missing link, which if so, would have transformed palaeoanthropology. As the braincase of the Dawn man was modern in nature with a lower ape-like jawbone, it was unlike any other human or ape remains we had discovered over the years, falling between apes and humans. Dated to be more than three-million years old, scientists hence believed it was an ancestor between us and apes. Curiosity was in the air. How did this odd fellow look like? Perhaps an ape-like body but with full human-like consciousness? For two cents, what would Darwin have said?

Fake, foolery, prank!

This scene is set in a more modern Britain where more than 40 years have passed by. Technological progress and myriad later archaeological finds of prehistoric human fossils drew suspicion to the authenticity of the Piltdown man. It was starting to look uncanny. Don’t we double check when suspicion lingers around?

In 1953, the skull and all its associated fossils were proven to be fakes through fluorine absorption dating. It was found that someone had actually stained the parts of the skulls so it looked older than its actual age. The teeth in the jawbone (revealed to have belonged to a juvenile orangutan) were filed so it would fit the human part of the skull. The hoaxer was pretty clever with the execution, even placing the skull in the right place at the gravel pits beside other fossils.

Whodunnit

Well, well, well. The part we’ve been waiting for. Severe speculations were floating – Dawson, who may have done it for fame; Sir Grafton Elliot Smith or Professor William Sollas who may done it to one up their rival Sir Arthur Woodward; even Martin Hinton, the museum curator in 1912 who used to experiment with staining. To our dismay, no theory stands firm for lack of evidence and the hoaxer remains unidentified.

The lurking neighbour

The next scene begins in Crowborough, near Piltdown which was also a neighbouring area to Charles Dawson’s residence. Here lived Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (plot twist!), a neighbour of Dawson who had a keen interest in palaeontology.

Amidst the list of suspects was this surprising and awfully familiar name – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Both Dawson and Doyle were members of the same archaeological society and shared similar interests in evolution studies. The fossils were found near to Doyle’s home in Sussex. His physician background, fossil collecting hobby, and eccentric nature quickly turned him a Piltdown suspect. He also has a history of faking photographs. People began looking, not a single nook and corner was left unsearched. Parallels were found between the novel The Lost World (which was also published in 1912) and the Dawn man. Academic papers were even written claiming that Doyle was the mastermind behind the hoax.

Time makes one forget things and by the end of the millennium, the era of the puzzling Dawn man had faded. The scene fades to black as the anthropological establishment move from Darwin’s monkeys to new chapters. So how does one remember the past? By telling stories once again like this.

Published – October 25, 2025 05:00 pm IST

Puerto Ayora, Ecuador:

Like Charles Darwin did in 1831, a group of scientists and environmentalists last year set sail from the English port of Plymouth, headed for the Galapagos islands off the coast of Ecuador.

But what they found on their arrival last month differed vastly from what naturalist Darwin saw while visiting the archipelago in 1835, in a trip key to developing his world-changing theory on natural selection.

The Galapagos today is under protection, part of a marine reserve and classified a World Heritage Site. Yet the area faces more threats than ever, from pollution and illegal fishing to climate change.

There to observe the challenges, with a well-thumbed copy of her great-great-grandfather’s “On the Origin of Species” in hand, was botanist Sarah Darwin.

“I think probably the main difference is that, you know, there are people working now to protect the islands,” the 60-year-old told AFP, onboard the “Oosterschelde,” a refurbished, three-mast schooner built more than 100 years ago.

The ship has been on a scientific and awareness-raising expedition since last August, stopping so far in the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Brazil and Chile among other locales.

Darwin’s ‘heirs’

In colonial times, the islands — located in one of the world’s most biodiverse regions — served as a pit stop for pirates who caught and ate the giant turtles that call it home.

During World War II, the archipelago hosted a US military base.

“I think if (Darwin) were able to come back now and see the efforts that everybody is making, both locally and globally, to protect these extraordinary islands and that biodiversity — I think he’d be really, really excited and impressed,” the naturalist’s descendant told AFP.

Sarah Darwin first visited the Galapagos in 1995, where she illustrated a guide to endemic plants. She then devoted herself to studying native tomatoes.

She also mentors young people as part of a project to create a group of 200 Darwin “heirs” to raise the alarm about environmental and climate threats to the planet.

Calling at several ports on the journey from Plymouth to the Galapagos, the Oosterschelde took on new groups of young scientists and activists at every stop, and dropped off others.

One of them, Indian-born Laya Pothunuri, who joined the mission from Singapore, told AFP the Galapagos “has a very important place in scientific terms.”

She was there, she said, to improve the irrigation systems in the islands’ coffee-growing regions.

“I plan to do it using recycled plastic, which also, again, is a big problem over here,” she said, noting that plastic waste ends up being consumed by wildlife.

Plastic peril

In the Galapagos, the expedition members worked with researchers from the private Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), the Charles Darwin Foundation and the NGO Conservation International on both confronting invasive species and protecting endemic ones.

Last year, a study by the Charles Darwin Foundation found that giant turtles in the area were ingesting harmful materials due to human pollution.

Samples revealed that nearly 90 percent of the waste consumed was plastic, eight percent was fabric and the rest metal, paper, cardboard, construction materials and glass.

From Galapagos, the Oosterschelde set sail again on Sunday to continue its world tour, with stops expected in Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)