Piltdown man

American  

[pilt-doun] / ˈpɪltˌdaʊn /

noun

1. a hypothetical early modern human, assigned to the genus Eoanthropus, whose existence was inferred from skull fragments that were allegedly found at Piltdown, England, in 1912 but were exposed as fraudulent through chemical analysis in 1953.

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Piltdown man British  

/ ˈpɪltˌdaʊn /

noun

1. an advanced hominid postulated from fossil bones found in Sussex in 1912, but shown by modern dating methods in 1953 to be a hoax, which was perpetrated by a student museum assistant who was refused a wage

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Piltdown man Scientific  

/ pĭlt′doun′ /

1. A presumed early species of human, Eoanthropus dawsoni, postulated from a skull supposedly found in a gravel bed in about 1912 but determined in 1953 to be a fake constructed from a human cranium and the jawbone of an ape.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Piltdown man

You know, of course, of the 1912 Piltdown man, the 'fossil' that was purported to be the missing link between man and ape and was found to be an outrageous fraud some 40 years later.

From Time Magazine Archive

The find was hailed as the missing link between man and ape; for years Piltdown man occupied a prominent place in paleontology.

From Time Magazine Archive

If the charges are proved true, said Science magazine last week, "the forgery may rank with that of the Piltdown man."

From Time Magazine Archive

Cruising around the stage by way of illustration are some of the most spectacular phonies since Piltdown man.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Piltdown man may represent the very remote, but direct, ancestor of modern man; but the Heidelberg man and the Ape-man were probably divergent 'sports' whose descendants never became men of the modern type.

From The New Gresham Encyclopedia. Vol. 1 Part 2 Amiel to Atrauli by Various