the evidence against Dawson, but the 
question has been raised of whether 
he could have executed the whole forg- 
ery alone. Gould believes that there 
was a conspiracy, that Teilhard de 
Chardin was at the root of it, and 
that the evidence he presents is so 
powerful that “the burden of proof 
must now rest with those who hold 
Father Teilhard blameless.” 
When Piltdown was proven to be 
a forgery, 1 wrote to Teilhard asking 
him for a note for the American Jour- 
nal of Physical Anthropology (I was 
editor at the time). Fie replied at once 
that he could not believe that any 
of the people with whom he had been 
associated was guilty and that he was 
sure some other explanation would be 
found. I think that this is what Teil- 
hard really believed; he had taken no 
part in a forgery and could not believe 
that the friends with whom he had 
been associated had either. In a letter 
to Oakley (cited by Gould), Teilhard 
refers to the discovery as spoiling “one 
of my brightest and earliest paleon- 
tological memories.” 
I think that the view that Teilhard 
was fooled (along with hundreds of 
others, it might be added) is reason- 
able, and I will try to demonstrate 
that Gould’s view is almost certainly 
wrong. However, it is important to 
remember that the Piltdown events 
took place before World War I, long, 
long ago. Dawson died in 1916, Smith 
Woodward in 1 944. There are few facts, 
and little chance of obtaining more 
hard evidence after all these years. 
Gould believes that the motivation 
for the original fraud was a joke. 
Gould writes, “I assume that Piltdown 
was merely a delicious joke for him — 
at first,” and continues with his fan- 
tasy of Teilhard’s motivations, his de- 
sire, his envy, his trickery. Not only 
are there no facts whatever to support 
these allegations, but they appear to 
reflect Gould’s own mental processes 
far more than those of Teilhard. On 
his reconstruction of Teilhard’s mo- 
tivation, Gould writes, “Here I see 
no great problem. ...” I see nothing 
but problems in reconstructing the 
events and motivations of seventy 
years ago. Gould has given us a picture 
that distorts the few facts there are, 
and 1 think that his whole view of 
Teilhard is false. The following re- 
construction is, I believe, more rea- 
sonable than the theory of the joke. 
Here are my thoughts on what hap- 
pened. They are not offered as facts, 
only as a possibility, and only because 
indirect evidence is being used to at- 
tack the reputation of a person long 
dead who cannot set the record 
straight. 
As Gould states, “Dawson, of 
course, unearthed most of the material 
himself.” The various “discoveries” 
were made over a period of four years 
— bones were stained, teeth ground, 
associated fossils and tools provided. 
When the issue arose of what a canine 
tooth in such a creature would be like, 
a canine was “found.” When added 
proof was needed to show that the 
jaw belonged with the skull, Piltdown 
2 was “found.” 
My bias is that the whole pattern 
of preparation of the teeth, bones, col- 
lection of associated “fossils” and the 
repeated releasing of strategic speci- 
mens was the result of deliberate forg- 
ery and could not have been a joke. 
The only individual consistently in- 
volved with all of the discoveries over 
all the years was Dawson. If it is ac- 
cepted that Dawson was the forger, 
then Teilhard was either fooled or he 
was a forger too. 
Could the original discovery have 
been the joke, planted by Teilhard 
and found by Dawson? Even if we 
forget the elaborate nature of the prep- 
aration of the specimens, the staining 
of the first “find” and of the bones 
sent by Mrs. Dawson to the British 
Museum is the same. Further, the ca- 
nine tooth may come from the original 
jaw. The events are not independent, 
so that some might have been jokes 
and other fakes. 
If the joke theory is out because 
of the difficulties of secretly collecting 
the specimens, preparing them, and 
arranging for their discovery, what 
was the motive for the forgery? Daw- 
son gained worldwide recognition for 
his finding of a fossil man. He reduced 
the chances of the truth being dis- 
covered (after giving the original 
“finds” to Smith Woodward) by hav- 
ing a distinguished scientist (Smith 
Woodward) and a friendly young 
priest (Teilhard) make additional dis- 
coveries. 
In retrospect the motivations and 
methods seem clear. Teilhard enjoyed 
his friendship with Dawson and the 
excitement of the discoveries. It was 
an honor for him to be associated with 
Smith Woodward. He had nothing to 
gain by being a secret conspirator, 
and if he had been one, he risked 
everything — his reputation as a priest 
and as a scientist. 
I think it reasonable to interpret 
the events in this way, but whatever 
the truth may have been, it should 
be noted that all the events took place 
before Dawson’s death in 1916 — no 
Piltdown fossils were ever found after 
that although searches were made. 
Gould cites no direct evidence 
against Teilhard; his account simply 
puts all events in the worst possible 
light. He argues that the forger would 
not have dared to put the carefully 
prepared canine in the gravel pit for 
fear of it being lost rather than dis- 
covered. By implication one of the 
forgers found the canine. Nonsense. 
The tooth could have been put where 
it almost surely would have been found 
or easily retrieved for a second try. 
On Piltdown 2, Gould makes much 
of the dates. Teilhard must have seen 
it in 1913, but the “find” was not 
announced until 1915. Dawson’s rea- 
sons for not announcing it sooner in- 
volve Dawson’s motivations, not Teil- 
hard’s. Teilhard was in the French 
army. To be shown a fake does not 
make a person a faker. 
Teilhard thought that the jaw did 
not belong with the skull; many other 
scientists thought the same. The prob- 
lem of the human joint and the missing 
condyle was pointed out immediately 
after the discoveries were described. 
In 1915 G. Miller wrote, “ Delib- 
erate malice [emphasis mine] could 
hardly have been more successful than 
the hazards of deposition in so break- 
ing the fossils as to give free scope 
to individual judgment in fitting the 
parts together.” Note how close this 
is to the phrase “as if on purpose” 
that Gould finds so revealing. Miller 
cited nearly seventy references on Pilt- 
down, and Teilhard offered no new 
suggestions on the relation of jaw and 
skull or condyle and jaw. 
Gould makes much of the fact that 
he thinks Teilhard should have de- 
voted more attention to Piltdown and 
that he did not because of his feeling 
of guilt. A different explanation is that 
Piltdown was a matter of intense con- 
troversy from the beginning. Perhaps 
his position with the church made Teil- 
hard wary of becoming involved in 
futile, acrimonious controversy. His 
main interests were not at the level 
of debates on a single fossil but on 
a general philosophy of man. Teilhard 
had enjoyed making the discoveries 
and his friendship with Dawson and 
Smith Woodward, but he had no de- 
sire to enter into the Piltdown debate. 
This cannot be proved, of course, but 
I think Teilhard’s actions are easy to 
14 
