The so-called Piltdown Man was once considered an unusual and perplexing human ancestor, but it turned out to be the jaw of a young orangutan attached to a Homo sapiens skull. What dating technique exposed the Piltdown fraud?

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Fluorine absorption analysis was used to expose the Piltdown fraud. This technique involves analyzing the amount of fluorine present in bones and other materials, which increases over time as they are exposed to groundwater. By examining the fluorine levels in the Piltdown fossils, researchers were able to determine that they came from two different time periods and were therefore likely fraudulent.

The So-Called Piltdown Man Was Once Considered an Unusual and Perplexing