Piltdown Man Anthropology

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In 1912 a man named Charles Dawson had claimed to discover skulls in the Piltdown quarry in Sussex, England. The remains, named the Piltdown man, were claimed to have been the “missing link.” He looked to be both human and ape, with the brow of Homo sapiens and a primitive jaw. As time went on and new remains were discovered, Piltdown man did not fit into the human family tree. In 1953, Piltdown man was finally proved to be a fake. Piltdown man had the skull from a medieval human, an Orangutan jaw, an elephant molar, hippopotamus tooth, and a canine tooth. These bones were not only from different species, but they were also treated to look ancient. Since then, other findings of artifacts and remains are given many methods of dating them and checking their authenticity. When anthropologists find ancient artifacts and remains they need to be sure that it is not modern and when remains are brought to them they must make sure that they are not fake.

INTRODUCTION
There are many ways to determine the authenticity of findings. Scientists need to use methods of dating organic material to determine when it lived and if it is authentic. It is important for anthropologists to study when an organism lived to see how they lived at that time. Sometimes people produce objects claimed to be real artifacts from a certain point in time for fame and for money. These fake artifacts produce false information and fool the public to believing these false claims. By using dating techniques, such as carbon dating, x-ray analysis, infrared analysis, and neutron activation, scientists can determine the authenticity of discovered artifacts.

RADIOCARBON DATING
In the 1940s, Willard Libby discovered a way to date organic material called radiocarbon dating....

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...g what elements make up the sample, the origin of the artifact can be determined and if the time period and the origin don’t match where the forged artifact is claimed to be from, then it can be determined that the artifact is a fake.

In conclusion, radiocarbon dating, infrared analysis, X-ray analysis, and neutron activation are all methods of testing artifacts to determine if they are forgeries. Neutron activation and X-ray analysis are the most popular dating technique because they are more precise and they do not harm the tested material. All these techniques used together can provide a date the artifact is from and the elements that make up the artifact. These techniques give a good idea of when it was made and where the artifact is from. If an artifact is forged then the results will not support the forgerers story and the forged artifact will be discovered.

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