The Piltdown Man - A Skull for Darwin (3/4)

The Piltdown Man - A Skull for Darwin (3/4)

In doc series "X-Files History", a historian and a profiler unravel mysterious cases of the past. In "The Piltdown Man" they're on the track of one of the biggest scientific hoaxes in history: Hailed in 1912 as proof of the theory of evolution and an archaeological milestone, the Piltdown skull made its discoverers world-famous before being exposed as a complete hoax decades later.

On December 18, 1912, the Geological Society of London presented a sensation to the world: The Missing Link, final proof of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Hobby archaeologist Charles Dawson claimed to have found the link between man and ape in a gravel pit in southern England, near the town of Piltdown. For forty years, the skull had great influence on anthropological research until it was exposed for what it was in 1953: A brazen fake consisting of a human cranium and an orangutan jawbone.

Profiler Dr. Michael Baurmann and historian Natalie Akbari seek to shed light on the greatest scam in the history of science, following the trail of the culprits in southern England, examining the Piltdown Skull and the place it was found - using scientific investigation to reveal the identity of the brilliant forger who fooled the scientific world for forty years.