00:02.26 kinkella Well, all right welcome on back to the Psud Archeology Podcast episode 134 and we are wrapping up our discussion on pilldown man. Ah man one of my old school favorites and we'd gone over you know the the perpetrator Charles Dawson um we had gone over why he would have done it. It was it was because um he wanted fame. You know he was. He was an amateur but he wanted to be taken seriously and he actually um. 00:36.71 kinkella Was able to get into the royal society I think based on this right? He would've never been able to do it before he'd kind of basically not been too successful in his life except with his fraud string. So um, this final swing at making a fake. Ancient human fossil got him in but the whole thing you know didn't last long for him because he had his premature death in 1916 point you know I also wonder if one of the reasons this wasn't so like kind of famous or the interest of the moment is when you look at these dates. This is all happening during world war 1 right? And that's sort of this serious dark time and maybe the papers are picking this up to because it's just something else to talk about besides hey, all your young men are dying. You know I wonder about that I wonder if it's a bit right time right? place that maybe if it wasn't a war. It wouldn't have gotten as much as much play. But anyway we do know these days that it was Charles Dawson for sure. It all makes sense. Everything kind of comes together. They they had have done more recent Dna testing on some of the the original um pilt done man fossils and they realized for sure that some of the bones found in this in the unit like two miles away are the same as the ones found in the original unit. 02:07.87 kinkella Like so that's like dude case closed obviously Dawson was doing what's called salting the site right? where he was going basically going out there at night you know dropping in bones that he already had that he himself would then find the next day right? So it's the. That is the only way where you get a um orangutan not only are orangutans you know not from there. Ah, it's the only way you get an orangutan jaw 2 pieces of it to be two miles away right and and both found in these little tiny holes right? you get it. It's it's it's obvious fraud that points straight to Charles Dawson so um there were other I know having having taught this for years there there are other little kind of what if mysteries associated with this. You'll hear that sir Arthur Conan doyle um will angle into this from time to time. He's the guy of course who wrote sherlock holmes famous person. Ah, interestingly connon doyle was in that area at that time right? and I believe new charles dawson I think ah they they would have run in the same groups of people the sort of high society in that area I do know that conan doyle again cruised around in the area where built down man was found I think he golfed nearby like he basically he just he hung out in that area. So it's not completely crazy. 03:42.95 kinkella But there's just no real evidence that he did um had any part in it. There's there're the only evidence in a way would be motive because Conan Doyle didn't like the so ah, scientific establishment. Because he was really into like ghosts and apparitions and that kind of stuff that really funky like early twentieth century funky apparition stuff if you know what I mean he was way down the rabbit hole in that and I think that. There had been some scientific studies that basically showed what a fool he was and he didn't like that of course so he would have had motive to make the scientific community look bad by perpetrating the pill-down man scandal but it doesn't seem like he was yeah, really a part of everything and it's just fun because he's a big name. But. Um, no man it was Dawson it was Charles Dawson now why did this work for so long. It's because up until that time of course as we know from um, the evolutionary history of humans. 04:54.25 kinkella There's no ancient human fossils in England it's in the wrong geographic location as we know these days we are all ultimately of course from Africa right? Africa is the cradle of human evolution absolutely and 100 % right so the idea of finding um human remains and and they were again. This is 1912 they were guessing. It was half a million years old at no idea, but it just doesn't make any sense but they wanted it because hey england is the civilized place. You know what? I mean there's a lot of not so covert racism with that of course, right? where it's like oh no, we the the white english people we're we're the ones who are who are the oldest who have the deepest history. Of course you know so. It works right into that sort of racist mentality of like oh we have to be the oldest we have to have the oldest thing you know so it wasn't questioned as much especially in England so there's that of course secondarily it provides the cliche. Missing link the quote unquote missing link right? I have gotten this question my entire career hey Ken Kelly can you show us the missing link and the answer to that. The short answer is There's no such thing and the longer answer is there are many missing links. 06:29.29 kinkella And I can show you a ton of them whether it's the Lucy Fossil or homo habilis or homo erectus or neanderthals right? we can pick our poison. The point being that we can trace human prehistory from millions of years ago through these. Fossil changes of the fossils we found in the fossil record right? We have a really good record. Sure there's there's 1 or 2 areas where we still have kind of questions but we have good answers for those questions we're just not a hundred percent on some of them. But we're. Pretty damn close if that makes sense right? There's questions in kind of the oh the sort of later australopithecene world and how that goes towards early homo but those are serious scientific questions in terms of answering the basic questions like. Where did human beings come from. We just go africa next question you know, basic a basic understanding of human evolution is totally there. But in 1912 it wasn't so they were still thinking of it as oh a missing link an intermediary. Between an ape looking guy and a human looking guy would be somebody with a big brain but with a basic jaw right? and so Charles Dawson played to those cliches. He played that sort of racist vibe right? and he was successful because of it now we know today. 08:03.20 kinkella That that idea of of a big brain coming early is exactly wrong. So for early human evolution. It was our legs. It's by petalism. It's the ability to walk and run you know and and have good movement on two legs that's the first step for human beings that separates them from the other apes that makes them something different. It's not the big brain big brain comes later right? So we've we've learned a lot you know in the um intervening. Hundred and ten years we really have I just kind of putting this together and going over my notes again, you know I've told this story for a long time with my class and and just kind of looking over it with a more just with a focused eye to get this thing ready I'm like man. You know we and by we I mean like anthropologists researchers over the last hundred years we've really done good work. We've really added to our knowledge of of ancient humanity. We were really done great good for us, you know and you know what's so funny the whole the whole. Charles Dawson fiasco the whole piltdown man silliness. It does remind me of a lot of current stuff like the Graham Hancock world that does just this like fraudster you know who just puts out just dumb. Ah. 09:36.97 kinkella Long disproven ideas and what it does just like with pilt down man it just hobbles our ability to tell facts to the general public but hey. Ah, think we in the archeology world. The end of the day doing pretty good and with that I'll see you guys next time.