THE PILTDOWN MAN
The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological hoax in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. The significance of the specimen remained the subject of controversy until it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of the lower jawbone of an orangutan deliberately combined with the cranium of a fully developed modern human. The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most famous paleoanthropological hoax ever to have been perpetrated. It is prominent for two reasons: the attention paid to the issue of human evolution, and the length of time (more than 40 years) that elapsed from its discovery to its full exposure as a forgery. (More from Wikipedia)
The Piltdown Men fast became one of my favorite band names, and how could it not? “The Piltdown Man” is one of the most famous and most successful paleontological hoaxes in history. From its “discovery” in 1912 in an English gravel pit, the skull fragments were accepted as genuine – though not unanimously in the scientific community – until ultimately proved conclusively in 1953 (more than 40 years later, and just 7 years before the Piltdown Men were formed) as being a fraudulent amalgamation of a modern human skull and the jaw of an orangutan with chimpanzee teeth hammered into it.
(October 2010)
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But I likely will keep putting out what I call the “Story of the Month” (I have my web pages broken down into short “Items” and longer “Stories” on whomever or whatever I am talking about) that I uncover as I load up the web site. These Stories are on well known (well, better known anyway) songs and albums and rock bands and other topics that are not of the Under Appreciated variety. I started those last year and meant to list the ones in my year-end post last time but forgot, so here is that list from the past two years:
December 2013 – The Standells
January 2014 – (skipped)
February 2014 – Hasil Adkins
March 2014 – Bobby Darin
April 2014 – Nuggets
May 2014 – The Nerves
June 2014 – The Outsiders (American band)
July 2014 – The Million Dollar Quartet
August 2014 – Scientific Proof of the Existence of God
September 2014 – The Piltdown Man and Brontosaurus
October 2014 – Walter/Wendy Carlos
November 2014 – The Trashmen
December 2014 – John Birch Society Blues
January 2015 – John Mellencamp
February 2015 – Child Is Father to the Man
March 2015 – Dion DiMucci
July 2015 – “Lola”
August 2015 – Bob Dylan the Protest Singer
(Year 6 Review)
