The case of the Piltdown man is a fraud that was presented in 1912 to the scientific community. It was the part of the skull and jaw with two teeth that the author of this artifact, Charles Dawson, claimed to be the missing link between ape and human (Kaplan, 2016). This discovery shook the academic community at that time because it contradicted the whole amount of scholarship about human evolution. In 1953, the scientific research stated it to be the fraud because they determined that it was the skull of a fully developed modern human, deliberately fused to the lower jaw of an orangutan (Webb, 2016). This extraordinary story seems impossible for modern science because the methods of testing and verifying different scientific discoveries are enormous.
It is hard to understand what were the intentions and desires of the “authors” of this hoax because their biography is underresearched. The central figure here, Charles Dawson, was the amateur archaeologist whose activities are not thoroughly investigated even now (Redman, 2017). What is clear here is that this case shows the fallacies of the academic world in the 1910s. The scientific world was a closed place, so it was hard for one scholar to know the modern debates and features of research development. The case of the Piltdown man moved the research in an entirely wrong direction, so scientists realized that the scientific information should be public and accessible to anyone (Redman, 2017). Nowadays, the academic community is highly open, so every student with access to the university subscriptions and the local library has opportunities to avoid any delusion like it was in the Piltdown man case.
Human evolution is a highly long evolutionary process that ultimately ended with the emergence of the modern man. The most vivid example of this gradual development is the evolution of the brain through the species. For instance, bipedalism played a crucial role in hominids making a qualitative step in becoming more developed creatures. It allowed the hominids to use their arms in processes quite similar to modern humans. It includes the use of tools created individually, the ability to collect fruits and berries by hand, and communication skills between species. Thus, in my opinion, the evolution of the brain was the key driver for the hominids becoming modern humans.
One of the integral questions about human evolution is how scientists learned the information about processes that took place tens of thousands of years ago. In this reflection, the explanation will be built on the case of domesticating fire by Neanderthals. The research is based on macroscopic identification through the process of archeological research (Rosell & Blasco, 2019). The scientists investigated the change in color and physical structure of different burnt items, which allowed them to understand approximately when the fire occurred (Rosell & Blasco, 2019). The possible limitation is that it is not always clear whether the fire was started with the help of humans or it was an independent event. Many authors hypothesize that the first signs of fire use were indicated in Kenya (Rosell & Blasco, 2019). What is unique in the research in Kenya is that the estimated temperatures of the burning were much higher than it usually happens in natural fires. The latest academic research “determined [the use of fire] by magnetostratigraphy” that occurred in some areas in Spain between 500 000 – 780 000 years ago (Rosell & Blasco, 2019, p. 4). It shows that the methods have become more elaborate through the years of scientific research.
As for the influence of the use of fire, it has contributed to the evolution of the brain over time. Early humans began using fire for basic cooking. Over time, the use of fire evolved into more advanced activities using crafts and metals that can only be obtained through heat treatment. More complex activities influenced the development of mental abilities and abstract thinking. The evolutionary process would have slowed down considerably if it had taken longer for early humans to understand how to use fire.
References
Kaplan, S. (2016). We finally know who forged Piltdown Man, one of science’s most notorious hoaxes. The Washnington Post.
Redman, S. (2017). Behind closed doors: What the Piltdown Man hoax from 1912 can teach science today. The Conversation.
Rosell, J., & Blasco, R. (2019). The early use of fire among Neanderthals from a zooarchaeological perspective.Quaternary Science Reviews, 217, 268-283.
Webb, J. (2016). Piltdown review points decisive finger at forger Dawson. BBC.