This is a very detailed examination of all the suspects in the infamous Piltdown palaeolithic skull forgery of 1912. In the end, the author concludes, surely rightly, that Charles Dawson committed the fraud, having already carried out numerous smaller frauds in other fields, such as the "discovery" of a Roman iron statuette, an ancient boat and even an alleged sighting of a sea serpent in the English Channel. It is amazing that others such as even Arthur Conan Doyle are suspected by some of being the Piltdown forger, on the basis of supposed similarities between incidents and descriptions in The Lost World novel and aspects of the Piltdown affair. There is, as ever among conspiracy theorists, a tendency to build castles of speculation on feeble threads of coincidence and lacunae in people's lives. A good read and a sober reminder of how honest and intelligent people can be fooled by a plausible rogue. ( )

In 1913, Charles Dawson came to renowned paleoarchaeologist Sir Arthur Woodward with bone fragments and they were deemed to be part of a new species of Homo sapiens, Eoanthropus dawsoni. It was the discovery of the then-young 20th century--a missing link between man and ape. Only, it was a fraud perpetrated by Dawson himself. He systematically led researchers and diggers to new "discoveries" in a Weald meadow, then unexpectedly died in the same decade. Walsh puts together the whole plot, from Dawson's earliest forgery to his masterpiece, and along the way, points the spotlight of suspicion on Woodward, other scientists in the field, and even Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. A great read.

http://lifelongdewey.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/573-unraveling-piltdown-by-john-e-... ( )