Culprit behind Piltdown Man hoax revealed

Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle has been cleared of hoaxing the scientific world with remains that were once believed to be the ‘missing link’ between humans and apes.

Between 1912 and 1914, museum palaeontologist Arthur Smith Woodward and solicitor Charles Dawson claimed the fossils of a human skull and ape-like jawbone had been found in Piltdown in Sussex.

Now one of the men who announced the discovery of the Piltdown Man fossils is likely to have been behind the infamous forgery, according to new analysis.