Paleoanthropological hoax illustrations of the Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus dawsoni) were recently found by @zpva, one of our Science Gossip project volunteers.

The illustrations come from an article published in The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London in 1913. You can read the article right here, starting with page 117: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/38641538#page/173/mode/1up

Bone fragments displayed above were presented by amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson as fossilized remains of a previously unknown early human, and were believed to be a “missing link between ape and man” for over 40 years!

In fact, the bones consisted of a medieval-age human skull, a 500-year-old lower jaw of an orangutan with fossil teeth of a chimpanzee that were modified to have human-like shapes.

More about the Piltdown Man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man.

The Zooniverse team would like thank our fantastic volunteer and moderator @yshish for this blog post.