The Piltdown Forgery
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
1st Ed.
In one of the greatest scientific scandals of the twentieth century, a skull fragment and jawbone unearthed in a Sussex gravel pit in 1912 convinced the world's leading palaeontologists that Piltdown Man was the long-sought missing link in human evolution — a deception that would go unchallenged for over forty years. The Piltdown Forgery by J. S. Weiner is the authoritative first-hand account of how the hoax was finally unmasked, chronicling the meticulous scientific detective work that exposed one of history's most audacious frauds. Weiner, the Oxford physical anthropologist who first suspected the deception, details the step-by-step investigation that proved the skull was human but the jaw belonged to an orangutan, deliberately stained and filed to fool the scientific establishment. Drawing on his unique position as the principal investigator, Weiner presents a gripping narrative that sits at the crossroads of science, history, and criminal investigation, illuminating the psychology of fraud and the vulnerability of even the most rigorous academic institutions to wishful thinking. The prose is precise yet compellingly readable, balancing technical forensic detail with broader reflections on the sociology of scientific belief. The identity of the perpetrator — still a matter of heated debate among scholars — remains tantalizingly unresolved, leaving the reader to weigh the evidence and draw their own damning conclusions.
Author: J. S. Weiner
Format: Hardback
Published: 1955, Oxford University Press
Genre: Anthropology
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
1st Ed.
In one of the greatest scientific scandals of the twentieth century, a skull fragment and jawbone unearthed in a Sussex gravel pit in 1912 convinced the world's leading palaeontologists that Piltdown Man was the long-sought missing link in human evolution — a deception that would go unchallenged for over forty years. The Piltdown Forgery by J. S. Weiner is the authoritative first-hand account of how the hoax was finally unmasked, chronicling the meticulous scientific detective work that exposed one of history's most audacious frauds. Weiner, the Oxford physical anthropologist who first suspected the deception, details the step-by-step investigation that proved the skull was human but the jaw belonged to an orangutan, deliberately stained and filed to fool the scientific establishment. Drawing on his unique position as the principal investigator, Weiner presents a gripping narrative that sits at the crossroads of science, history, and criminal investigation, illuminating the psychology of fraud and the vulnerability of even the most rigorous academic institutions to wishful thinking. The prose is precise yet compellingly readable, balancing technical forensic detail with broader reflections on the sociology of scientific belief. The identity of the perpetrator — still a matter of heated debate among scholars — remains tantalizingly unresolved, leaving the reader to weigh the evidence and draw their own damning conclusions.