Richard Harter’s World
Annex A
Piltdown Man home page
November 2003
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The Clark University Piltdown Plot Project

In the late 1990’s a group at Clark University led by Charles Blinderman and David Joyce put together a site called the Piltdown Plot Project. Charles Blinderman was the author of The Piltdown Inquest. Blinderman and Joyce were both professors at Clark University. The site, which is quite extensive, contains approximately two hundred web pages that are copies of original documents, and copies of two books, Blinderman’s The Piltdown Inquest, and Arthur Smith Woodward’s The Earliest Englishman. The site is a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to reconstruct the history of the Piltdown Hoax, its exposure, and the flurries of speculation about the possible culprit.

It must be said, however, that the selected materials are quite uneven in quality and relevance, and that the site is curiously incomplete. It appears that the construction of the site was abandoned before it was completed. Unfortunately the site seems to lack pages that describe the project, its aims, and the means used. One can only speculate as to the details. The seems appropriate; the Piltdown Man hoax has always been enveloped in speculation.

Given that Blinderman was the author of one of the Piltdown books, it seems likely that the transcribed materials were from his files, and that the view was taken that completeness was of more importance than relevance. There are pages and sections are listed, for which there are no corresponding pages. It appears that the project may have been abandoned with the transcription of Blinderman’s files, and that no research was undertaken to find material not already in the files.

Be that as it may, the Piltdown Plot pages are a major resource. It appears that the material was scanned using an OCR, and that the quality of transcription was excellent.

Outline of pages in the Piltdown Plot Project

Map of the Piltdown Plot Project

Introduction to the Piltdown Hoax

General History Surveys

Reports on the finds: 1912-1917

VII Exposé: 1953-1955

Suspecting Dawson

Defending Dawson

Suspecting Teilhard de Chardin

Defending Teilhard de Chardin

Suspecting Abbott

Defending Abbott

Suspecting Smith

Defending Smith

Suspecting Keith

Defending Keith

Suspecting Hinton

Defending Hinton

Suspecting Doyle

Defending Doyle


This page was last updated December 9, 2011.

Richard Harter’s World
Annex A
Piltdown Man home page
November 2003
email