About a century ago, a million-year old skeleton was found and deemed to be the oldest known Englishmen. It caused a sensation at the time. He had a big brain but ape-like teeth and jaw, and they found a carved bone "bat" next to the bones...the only problem was that it was a total hoax. The bones had been stained to have matching and older looking patina, the "bat" had been carved with a knife, and the skull turned out to be modern, while the jaw bones turned out to be actual ape jaw-bones. No problem right? Hoaxes happen all the time. Well, not quite the case here. It set back archeology for quite a while. Being an "accepted" find, the fossil's found after "The Piltdown Man", as it was called, were compared with the fakes, thus showing inaccuracies in the real finds. For decades, real fossils were called fakes, real knowledge was ignored, as we kept referring back to the original hoax skeleton...
Well scientists are on the case to finally solve the riddle of who was responsible for the greatest archeological hoax in history...take a look.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/feb/05/piltdown-man-archaeologys-greatest-hoax
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