Bibliography - British Geological Survey

Bowler, P. J. 1992 (contribution to discussion in Tobias 1992c)
Boylan, P. 2004. Museum specimens as sacred objects: the contrasting treatment of the Piltdown fraud of
1912 and that of Moulin Quignon, 1863. In: Geofakes, frauds and hoaxes, abstracts of a meeting organised
by the History of Geology Group, under the aegis of the Geological Society of London, Burlington House,
London, 22 October 2004, p. 5. (‘Since the first exposure of the enormity of the Piltdown Man forgery fifty
years ago, both scientific and popular literature has focused almost exclusively on attempts to unmask the
forger. However, there is a much more fundamental question that ought to be asked: how could such a crude
forgery be accepted by so many of the scientific community in the first place and then escape serious review,
let alone detection, for a further 40 years? ...The very uncomfortable conclusion is that the rapid development
of museum curatorship concepts between 1893 and 1912 created an atmosphere in which the Piltdown ‘finds’
were never seriously regarded as scientific objects requiring dispassionate investigation. Instead, they were
treated more as sacred relics, not to be defiled by proper scientific investigation of evaluation, while international
politics, or at least prestige, were also in play. We need to constantly ask ourselves, as scientists,
whether we are today being just as gullible in the face of contemporary scientific frauds or myths.’ On this
last point see, for example, Morwood & Oosterzee 2007, and Henneberg et al. 2011)
Brannigan, A. 1981. The social basis of scientific discoveries. Cambridge University Press. (Piltdown Man,
pp. 133–142)
Breuil, H. 1922. In: Revue anthropologique, July-Aug, p. 229. (Argues that the so-called worked bone
implement from Piltdown is the result of gnawing by beaver or Trogontherium, beaver remains having been
reported from the same bed)
Breuil, H. 1938. The use of bone implements in the Old Palaeolithic period. Antiquity, 12, no. 45, 56‒67,
plates I‒IV. (Translation from the French of a paper read at the International Congress of Prehistoric and
Protohistoric Science at Oslo, 1936. Breuil once again dismisses the Piltdown bone implement as the work
of a large species of beaver, p. 59.)
Breuil, H. 1949. Silex taillés de Piltdown (Sussex). Bulletin de la Société préhistorique Française, 46,
344‒348.
Broad, W. & Wade, N. 1982. Betrayers of the truth. New York: Simon & Schuster, 256 pp. (The motives
that lead to fraud and deceit in science are examined, and notable examples cited. Scientists consider themselves
to be the principal arbiters of truth and objectivity―yet this is demonstrably a self deception. The oftenmade
claim that scientific research proceeds in a rational way is likewise shown to be a myth. ‘Expectancy
leads to self-deception, and self-deception leads to the propensity to be deceived by others. The great scientific
hoaxes, such as the Beringer case and the Piltdown man... demonstrate the extremes of gullibility to which
some scientists may be led by their desire to believe.’ The Piltdown ‘dawn man’ emerged at a time of British
national pride when the Empire was at its height, and was thus eagerly embraced as proof that England had
been the cradle of world civilisation.)
Broek, A. J. P. van den 1921. Onze tegenwoordige kennis van den voor-historischen mensch. Tijdschrift
van het K. Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, ser. 2, 38, 355–389. (Adopts Boule’s attribution of
the Piltdown jaw to Troglodytes dawsoni, pp. 370–71, 374)
Brook, A. 2004. Piltdown and Sussex: an uneasy relationship. In: Geofakes, frauds and hoaxes, abstracts of
a meeting organised by the History of Geology Group, under the aegis of the Geological Society of London,
Burlington House, London, 22 October 2004, pp. 5–6. (An examination of the Sussex County Magazine,
published 1926–1956, reveals a number of previously unnoticed papers connected with the Piltdown finds
(Martin 1943; Kenward 1955). By contrast, the Sussex Archaeological Society were dismissive of Dawson
and disregarded the whole Piltdown controversy, although an intriguing notice has been discovered in the
Society’s Newsletter of April 1980: see Holden 1980a.)
Broom, R. 1918. The evidence afforded by the Boskop skull of a new species of primitive man (Homo
capensis). Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, 23 (2), 63–79.
(Comparison with Piltdown, p. 78)
Broom, R. 1933. The coming of man, was it accident or design? London: H. F. & G. Witherby, 238 pp.
(Eoanthropus dawsoni, pp. 153‒156. Includes a restored profile of the Piltdown skull (Fig. 27) modified
after Smith Woodward. The author notes how closely the arrangement of structures round the large nerve
opening at the back of the jaw resembles that of the chimpanzee. ‘The affinities of the Piltdown skull are