Tools and fakes
One of the most remarkable finds at Piltdown was a digging tool shaped like a cricket bat – an appropriate design for the "first Englishman". But the genuine elephant fossil bone had also been doctored. Tests would later reveal it had been shaped with a metal blade.
In the 1970s a trunk was discovered that belonged to Martin Hinton, a volunteer in the British Museum (Natural History) at the time of the discoveries. It contained what appeared to be test fakes – bones that had been cut and stained to look ancient.
Many believe this put Hinton at the heart of the fraud; others think he may simply have been trying to work out how others made their fakes.
Click to listen to the Natural History Museum's Andy Currant describe the bat (top) and Hinton materials (bottom).