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The Piltdown Skull
At one time it was believed that humans evolved first in Europe. In 1888 the discovery of a skull of modern type, with crude stone tools and animal bones, at Galley Hill, London, was thought to prove this, and to show that our early ancestors probably had a human brain with an ape-like body. In evolutionary terms the expansion of the brain came first and encouraged the development of the upright human body.
So when pieces of a human skull, a canine tooth and an ape-like jaw were found separately in ancient gravels at Piltdown, Sussex, between 1908 and 1912 it seemed reasonable to reconstruct them as the skull of one individual with a primitive body (the ape jaw would have inhibited speech) and a modern brain. Palaeontologists were pleased that an 'ape-man' had been found in England since it reinforced the evolutionary ideas of the time.
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