are now known to be only 1,000 years old. Further tests were then undertaken
by scientists from Oxford University. They discovered that the jaw and the
skull fragments were from two different species, human and ape. The jaw was
probably from an orangutan, and they were able to see, with the aid of a
microscope, tiny scratches where the teeth had been filed down to make them
appear more human. The bone fragments had been artificially stained with
iron sulphate to make them look ancient. The canine tooth had been stained
with brown paint and a steel knife had been used to shape the elephant bone.
In 1953, the Natural History Museum formally announced that Piltdown Man
was a hoax–but by then, almost all those who might have committed the
fraud had died. Dawson is now known to have committed a number of other
frauds and he had a collection of very dubious‘finds’which have been
analysed by a modern archaeologist. Why he did it is unknown–perhaps he
simply longed to make his mark in the scientific world. He certainly achieved
a lasting notoriety!^15
Conclusion
This book ends at this point, because the events of 1914 bring us to a point in
history where a great deal of social, political, judicial and cultural life was
altered forever. The consideration of crime, policing and forensics after this
point is a matter for different specialist authors and recorders of truecrime
stories, and there is much of vast interest to be read in their works, relating to
more recent events and characters, many of whom are still living.
There have been many other crimes committed in the course of human
history and still more are being committed today, but increasingly the
techniques of forensic archaeology are helping law enforcement and justice
agencies to identify victims and clues, and to solve and prosecute cases across
the world.
It is a sad fact that archaeology itself is the victim of much crime
nowadays, as ancient sites and museums are looted and destroyed in wars and
insurgencies. Forensic techniques can occasionally repair some of the damage
done by differentiating between real and faked objects, but the sad fact is that
once an object is stolen from its original location without record, it is not only
the artefact itself that is lost, but all the information that should have been
recovered with it. The value of an archaeological find is much greater than its
physical entity alone. Its true worth lies in the information it provides about
VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN CRIME