00:00.20 kinkella Hello and welcome to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 134 and tonight we are discussing pilt down man the o g number one first and foremost archeological fraud. Of them all. 00:22.10 kinkella All right? So hey man it's a new year and I thought I would just go with the old school of old school classics. You know it's funny I've been looking at the list of stuff that I've done and. List of stuff that I haven't done and I realize that I haven't done some of the total classics again I still haven't done Atlantis like what's wrong with me man and um, speaking of kind of old classics pill down man man. Everyone's got a no pilt down man I think one of the reasons I might have kind of forgot to do this one is that I talk about this one every semester in my ah anthropology classes and specifically in. Biological anthropology right? This one comes up and I use this as an example in that class because in bioanthrop is where we go over the human fossil records specifically right? and there's man there's all kinds of good stories in there. You know, just. Thinking about it I might bring more of those in here. Those things are good but there is in the midst of all that in the midst of all that good real research if you're talking about like fossils they that you guys have probably heard of like Lucy you know, um, and and so on she's. 01:53.93 kinkella By far the most famous but the um human ancient human remains of things like ah homo habilis homo erectus right? Australopithecines all that kind of good stuff all that real stuff. There's this one big fake and that fake is. Is pilt down now this you know what's funny. This story is like 2% different than most of the other stories I'll tell on here and it's because um, it's because of the background of this the background of pilt down. Pilt down is a full on fraud right? What we're going to find is that the guy who perpetrated the pilt down man hoax was actively trying to defraud the public right? He was actively lying in order to get something for himself. Most of the stuff we talk about on this channel isn't it's not that bold if that makes sense. You know most of the stuff we talk about here are just kind of unscientific fraudulent beliefs that. Really aren't supported by anything but a group of people start to believe in them because they kind of want to belong to a certain group and they sort of want to virtue signal to this certain group right? The Graham Hancock situation comes to mind with that right? It's it's 2% 03:25.59 kinkella Different than an overt fraud and I'm not saying Graham Hancock isn't a fraud because he is a total and 100% fraud. But um, he's not trying to sell a fake artifact which is what you have here right. Um, and what one of the many things that makes pilt down man. So famous is that the fraud that was perpetrated on the general public lasted over 40 years so tilt down man comes to light in 1912 see it's old. You know this is this is over a hundred years ago kind of thing but the fact that the fraud lasted so long like people took this fossil seriously this fake fossil for over 40 years and we'll see in the end of this you know of course the reason why they took it seriously is the same reason we take so many false things seriously because they tell us what we want to hear you know and pilt down man is a great example of telling. General public and scientists at the time too. Plenty of scientists fall for this telling what they want to hear you know oh isn't it great when you find exactly what you're looking for and I can tell you this based on my life in archeology. 04:56.45 kinkella You never find exactly what you're looking for and actually it's sort of extra cool that you don't because you usually find. Kind to something related the sort of what you are looking for but you find so much more or you find something completely different and it's even more fascinating than you think so real archeology is is great I'd love what I'd do you know and the fines I've made over my career They've just been. Fascinating left turns that I didn't think I was going to make I've never gone out to find something and been like oh right there it is I mean if you see stuff like that. It's the first inkling of like hey maybe this isn't totally on the level. Because it's satisfied every want that I have so all right? How does this thing go down in 1912 this guy named Charles Dawson sort of brings this group. Ah, fossil bits and stone tool bits forward to the scientific community right? and it's a bunch of stuff. He's found in Sussex in England right in a in a gravel pit and just there. 06:27.72 kinkella Right? Knowing what we know now you're like ah ancient human in England yes, exactly an ancient human in England so right away in all this aren't we like. Ah, okay now. Specifically what did he find right? The big showy fossil was a skull basically and it was a human looking skull. With a really large Ape like jaw right now there's other stone tools and that kind of stuff they're found with it. But that's the star of the show and the skull and the the jaw look old because they're kind of browned and they sort of have like. Gravel from the area this is found in a gravel pit sticking to it right? It's it's got the look It's got the fossilized look and so um, when Charles Dawson kind of shows this to the scientific community. They initially go with it. Pretty much now it is important to say that even though what we will find is a fraud. Um, even though it lasted over forty years that even in the early days there were people who were highly skeptical of this. So don't think that like. 07:57.38 kinkella Every single scientist was just like oh yeah, pilt down man. Oh for sure a hundred percent there were some seriously skeptical people especially outside of England you know who who were never 100% on boardre they always kind of were looking sort of sideways at this thing. But there was enough acceptance of this where I mean this was put in the anthropology books of the time you can still look up and find pages where um, the pilt down man is reconstructed with his tools and everything you know running along. Ancient england right? So it really put a damper on other finds other real fines that are going to come later because they had to deal with this weird piltdown man thing. So anyway Charles Dawson shows all this stuff off. And it's accepted and um he is helped by this other guy Arthur Smith Woodward and Woodward is like the department head of geology at the British Museum so he's almost like the Dean you know he's he's sort of like the person above him or the. The department chair and to get him on board was a big coup for Dawson writes like all right? got this guy who can help me make this thing real. 09:29.65 kinkella And along with the stone tools and other bone fragments too that were found in this area. Um, hey it's a slam dunk. So based on these fines. What do you think. That team of Dawson and Woodward is gonna do next. They're gonna go back and dig for some more and what do they find in the next few years well stay tuned and I'll tell you.