The Dualist Contention of Piltdown Man

If you're interested in science you're familiar with Piltdown man, formally named Eoanthropus dawsoni in 1912 but shown to be hoaxed in 1953. What you may not be familiar with is the DUALIST CONTENTION, and here's a thread on it... pic.twitter.com/5vNTsSnMe4

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

Yes, the one thing that every single person who’s heard of Piltdown man knows is that it was eventually determined to be a hoax. What’s discussed less frequently is that early 20th century views on Piltdown man were -far more complex- than popularly portrayed...

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

Acceptance of Eoanthropus as a valid proto-human (as per the Margaret Flinsch illustration here) might have been the 'mainstream' view that made it into textbooks and encyclopedias, but it certainly wasn’t the only one, nor was this acceptance wholesale or uncontroversial... pic.twitter.com/BoeAsCGqBJ

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

Piltdown man’s describer was Arthur Smith Woodward of the British Museum (Natural History). But Woodward was an ichthyologist, not a hominid or primate expert. In the UK, Woodward had some aggressive supporters who argued that his interpretation of Piltdown man was right. BUT... pic.twitter.com/lV4aisLOGL

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

Certain anthropologists, primatologists and mammalogists were of the opinion - as earlier as 1915 - that the partial cranium and jaw of Piltdown man did not go together, and that while the cranium was human, the jaw was from a chimpanzee or some other non-human ape...

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

Gerrit Smith Miller in Washington, DC argued in 1915 that the Piltdown remains didn't go together, and that a chimp jaw - if broken in the right place - was almost identical to the jaw of Piltdown man. Miller argued that the cranium was from a human, the jaw from a fossil chimp.. pic.twitter.com/0i22zBEGH2

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

King’s College anatomist David Waterston had also argued for the incongruity of the remains in 1913. French palaeontologist Marcellin Boule and German anthropologist Franz Weidenreich in 1923 argued likewise, as did Aleš Hrdlička [shown here] in Washington in 1923/24. In fact... pic.twitter.com/YgOENr6mWs

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

Given the poor stratigraphic data from the Piltdown excavation, Hrdlička intimated that the Piltdown cranium might be a modern burial that had been incorporated into older strata (the picture shows the 1938 Piltdown man memorial, still in place at Barkham Manor, East Sussex)... pic.twitter.com/ec50On5acK

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

Hrdlička examined the Piltdown remains himself in 1922. By that time, the alleged 'Piltdown II' specimen (a tooth) had been found. It was so similar to the teeth of Piltdown I that he wondered if it had been mislabelled: could it actually be part of the Piltdown I remains?

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

In reality, it was a hoax, just like Piltdown I. Miller, Hrdlička and their colleagues - all expressing doubts about Piltdown man's identity and homogeneity during the 1910s and 20s - have been dubbed 'the dualists', since they thought that Piltdown man consisted of two animals..

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

In other words, red flags were present throughout the history of one of palaeontology’s greatest hoaxes, yet were ignored by workers who held influential positions. Here's John Cooke's 1915 'Piltdown gang' painting, today at Burlington House, the Geological Society of London... pic.twitter.com/QhzqRNTooN

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

Woodward and his colleagues in the UK, and Henry Fairfield Osborn in the US (Osborn became a Piltdown supporter in 1921) should have listened to Miller, Hrdlička and the others, and to the reasonable, well supported dualist arguments. Alarm bells were ringing from the start... pic.twitter.com/9Dl6mNcxNw

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023

This thread is a condensed and distilled version of the article I've just published at Tetrapod Zoology, titled Piltdown Man and the Dualist Contention https://t.co/Ogxn43U7B3. Thanks for reading :) #hominids #hoaxes #scientifichoax #Piltdown #paleoanthropology #hominins

— Darren Naish (@TetZoo) March 13, 2023