APE TO MAN?

1. Piltdown Man
In 1912, Charles Dawson, an amateur geologist proclaimed his miraculous discovery of the bones of man's ape-like predecesor. The pieces of a human skull and an ape-like jaw were discovered in a gravel pit near Piltdown, England. As soon as it was discovered, scientists declared that the "Piltdown Man" was 300,000 to 1 million years old. It was thought to be the greatest evolutionary discovery of the century. But after 40 years, scientists started to sense that something was wrong. After a re-examination, tests showed that the skull belonged to a 600-year-old woman and the jaw from a 500-year-old orangutan from the East Indies. (Our Times--the Illustrated History of the 20th Century, Turner Publishing, 1995, page 94).

2. Nebraska Man
The Nebraska Man, also thought to be a "missing link" was built from the tooth of an extinct pig.

3. Java Man
The "Java Man" was built from a piece of skull, a bit of a thigh bone and three molars. The rest was imagined up by Plaster of Paris workers.

4. Heidelburg Man
Heidelburg Man was built up from a jawbone, a chin, and some teeth.

5. Neanderthal Man
What was once thought to be an evolutionary predecessor to modern humans was disproved when DNA tests showed that it was just a regular ape.