Of Paleopolitics and Missing Links - The Fossil Chronicles - page 12

themselves against him, he viewed Piltdown as a legitimate fossil. In
the meantime, the pieces of Piltdown I and II and associated planted
tools and fossilized animals that had been discovered over the course
of eight years (1908-15) would severely impede the study of human evo-
lution for decades to come. Much speculation has been made about
what sort of person would perpetrate such a fraud. The culprit had to
have been knowledgeable, motivated, and lacking in scruples—some-
one selfish enough to rob prominent paleoanthropologists of time and
effort by deliberately distracting them from more legitimate research.
Ultimately, the perpetrator stole the self-respect of the supporters of
Piltdown who lived long enough to learn that they had been duped.
It has been widely accepted that Dawson himself played a major role
in developing and perpetrating the Piltdown fraud. 39 For one thing, he
was of questionable character, having been accused of “unblushingly”
plagiarizing over half of two volumes about the history of Hastings
Castle, which he had published two years before the announcement of
Piltdown, as well as unethical behavior in an earlier real estate transac-
tion . 40 More to the point, it was Dawson who discovered the Piltdown
site and found most of its alleged fossils and artifacts. Such discoveries
ceased after his death in 1916 . 41 As for motive, Dawson's desire to be
elected as a fellow of the Royal Society, a leading scientific organization,
was well known, and what better way to secure the necessary support
from current fellows than by inviting them to study the most important
human missing link ever discovered? Indeed, Dawson asked society fel-
low Arthur Smith Woodward to reconstruct and interpret the Piltdown
skull. Woodward returned the favor by proposing the scientific name
Eoanthropus dawsoni when the Piltdown discovery was announced in 1912
and, two years later, by signing a certificate of candidacy for Dawson to
stand for election to the Royal Society. (The certificate had the support
of other Royal Society fellows and was renewed annually until Dawson's
death in 1916. Had he lived longer, “there is every reason to suppose
that . . . he would have been duly elected—an eventuality that would
have been based almost entirely on his achievements at Piltdown.”) 42