Piltdown Man
In the early 20th century, Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist in Britain, made an astonishing discovery: a half-chimp, half-human skull found in the Sussex village of Piltdown. It came to be known as Piltdown Man, the missing evolutionary link that conclusively proved Darwin’s theory.
But after Dawson died -- a hero to the world -- scientists uncovered the truth. The skull was a total fake, perpetrated by a fame-seeking serial forger. Winchester calls Dawson “the Jayson Blair of paleontology,” after the disgraced former journalist who fabricated stories for The New York Times. “It’s a wonderful scandal. And it shows how deluded the Brits were. For a long, long while, everyone believed that the missing link had been found—and that the missing link was an English gentleman!”