10 Fascinating Historical Artefacts (That Weren't Real)
1. Piltdown Man
In 1912, an amateur archaeologist named Charles Dawson uncovered fossilised human remains near the village of Piltdown in England.
Except he didn't - they were artificially stained orangutan bones - but Dawson didn't know that and neither did anybody else until 1949 when the Natural History Museum used new dating techniques to work out there was no way they could represent the missing link they were claimed to be.
No one knows who the forger was, not that there is any shortage of likely culprits. A more pressing question might be why anyone would want to undertake such an audacious hoax, and one which could so easily be proven fake.
It was potentially intended to make the scientific community think the 'missing link' was to be found in Europe, specifically Britain, to humiliate the scientific establishment, or just to see if the forger could get away with it.