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Piltdown man

   Also found in: Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.02 sec.
Pilt·down man  (pltdoun)
n.
A supposed early species of human postulated from a skull allegedly found in a gravel bed in about 1912 but determined in 1953 to be a fake constructed from a human cranium and the jawbone of an ape.

[After Piltdown Common in southeast England.]

Piltdown man [ˈpɪltˌdaʊn]
n
(Earth Sciences / Palaeontology) an advanced hominid postulated from fossil bones found in Sussex in 1912, but shown by modern dating methods in 1953 to be a hoax, which was perpetrated by a student museum assistant who was refused a wage

Piltdown man  (pltdoun)
A presumed early species of human, Eoanthropus dawsoni, postulated from a skull supposedly found in a gravel bed in about 1912 but determined in 1953 to be a fake constructed from a human cranium and the jawbone of an ape.
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun1.Piltdown manPiltdown man - a supposedly primitive man later proven to be a hoax
primitive, primitive person - a person who belongs to an early stage of civilization


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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
They knew not the meanings of the words they mouthed; they but repeated the ritual that had been handed down from preceptor to neophyte since that long-gone day when the ancestors of the Piltdown man still swung by their tails in the humid jungles that are England now.
 
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