Significance of the find
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Photograph 1
The skull and jaw of the Piltdown fake. |
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Photograph 1 shows clearly where the joint between the skull
and jaw bone (between temporal bone and mandible) was deliberately
damaged so that poor fit between skull and jaw would not be
noticed. The white parts of the skull and jaw bone are those
that were found; the black parts are the filled in missing
parts.
In 1982, the jawbone (mandible) was identified
as that of an orangutan, dated at 500 years old and probably
originating from Sarawak. The mandible is not fossilised but
cavities within the bone are filled with sediment.
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Photograph
2
The jaw of the Piltdown fake. |
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| Note from photographs 1 and 2 the evenness
of the surfaces of the molars, the cheek teeth. They look good
enough to have undergone cosmetic dentistry, which indeed was
the case. Criss-cross scratch marks indicate that an abrasive,
a file, was used to flatten the surfaces of the teeth. The person
who filed the teeth created an unrealistic wear pattern in the
lower molars. The inner margins of the teeth are more worn than
the outer margins - normally the wear pattern is the other way
round. The biting surfaces of the upper and lower molars do
not match. The canine tooth on the jawbone was filed and filled
with sand and painted. Incredibly, it was patched with chewing
gum! |
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