It's a detective story with a century-old crime: The forgery of
a supposed "missing link" in human evolution that went
undetected for decades. Now, researchers are set on identifying
the long-dead culprits responsible for the famous Piltdown Man
hoax — involving forged bones said to belong to an early human —
and teasing out their motives. Writing in this week's issue of
the journal Nature, Chris Stringer of the Natural History
Museum, London, explains why he and his colleagues are still
investigating a mystery that began 100 years ago. "Personally, I
am intrigued by the question of whether the hoax was driven by
scientific ambition or by more jocular or vindictive motives,"
Stringer wrote. He and his colleagues plan to test the forged
bones from the Piltdown case with modern methods, aiming to find
out who most likely made them and why. [ The 6 Greatest Hoaxes
in History ] History of a hoax The Piltdown Hoax is one of the
most successful scientific frauds in history. In December 1912,
British paleontologist