The instrument listing for Tubular Bells mentions a “Piltdown Man”. What is this?
It refers to Mike’s caveman growling in Part Two. The Piltdown Man was an anthropological hoax. The exact perpetrator of the hoax has never been revealed. The hoax consisted of placing the jawbone of some Neanderthal variant into the skull of a gorilla, or the other way around. In any case, the anthropologist who “discovered” it (keeping in mind that, of course, he was meant to discover it) trumpeted it to be evidence of the missing link between apes and humans and so on. It took several years before the hoax was discovered, and it certainly destroyed some credibility within the field. More information can be found at these websites: http://www.unmuseum.org/piltdown.htm http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/piltdown.html Credit: Derek Kidd, Telekidd@aol.com, Bob Weiniger, danatek@bellsouth.net.
The name refers to the fact that Mike sings like a caveman. The Piltdown Man was an anthropological hoax. The exact perpetrator of the hoax has never been revealed. The hoax consisted of placing the jawbone of some Neanderthal variant into the skull of a gorilla, or the other way around. In any case, the anthropologist who “discovered” it (keeping in mind that, of course, he was meant to discover it) trumpeted it to be evidence of the missing link between apes and humans and so on. It took several years before the hoax was discovered, and it certainly destroyed some credibility within the field. More information can be found at these websites: http://www.unmuseum.org/piltdown.htm http://www.tiac.net/users/cri/piltdown.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/piltdown.html Credit: Derek Kidd, Telekidd@aol.com, Bob Weiniger, danatek@bellsouth.net.
