The purpose of this web page is to provide additional descriptions
of how A.T. Marston was treated in print.
(return to essay)
K.P. Oakley, 1952. "Swanscombe Man", Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 63: 271-300.
Oakley describes the circumstances of how Swanscombe Man was discovered, and his own reactions when he first heard of the find. There's a comparison of Swanscombe with Piltdown, and a well-written explanation of why the two Swanscombe skull pieces were difficult to interpret. Five of Marston's articles are cited in the bibliography. Overall, this has the largest amount of text I have ever seen Oakley write about Marston.
Later, Oakley re-used portions of this article in the introduction to a 1965 book, The human skull: a cultural history, by Folke Henschen.
K.P. Oakley, 1954. "The Piltdown controversy", British Dental Journal 96: 122.
A response to a letter of Marston's in the same journal. Oakley points out that two "<" symbols had been left out when Marston quoted Oakley's work. Oakley doesn't comment on anything else Marston wrote. (See pages 70 and 146 for related letters.)
J.S. Weiner & K.P. Oakley, 1954. "The Piltdown fraud: available evidence reviewed", American Journal of Physical Anthropology 12: 1-7.
In November of 1953, Marston had been invited to speak at a meeting along with Oakley and Weiner about the Piltdown forgery. Marston used the occasion to verbally attack the British Museum, which got him a certain amount of media attention (see Anonymous 1953a). The account of the meeting in the Proceedings of the Geological Society of London (Oakley 1953) has detailed paragraphs about what Oakley and Weiner said, but Marston's section only contains:
| "Mr. A.T. Marston, F.D.S., F.G.S., exhibited and commented upon lantern-slides in support of his conclusion that the mandible and teeth were those of a fossil ape." |
One could interpret this as a form of censorship, but an equally likely explanation is that Marston didn't submit a written summary of his arguments to the Proceedings.
Weiner's section in the Proceedings contains one of the few instances in which an established scientist directly argues against Marston's theories in print. Weiner later re-worded it slightly to include in an article to the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Weiner & Oakley 1954: 6-7):
|
"In the discussion at the [meeting of the Geological Society], Marston ignored the
chemical evidence as well as the other facts presented by Oakley.
He did not produce any data in support of his claim that the mandible
is that of a fossil ape, other than a reference to slight and quite
equivocal features in the morphology of the jaw and canine. Indeed,
he has taken considerable pains in his recent papers to emphasize the
close anatomical similarities which the jaw and teeth bear to modern
simian, and particularly orang, specimens. On the other hand, he
has merely offered a quite hypothetical explanation for the production
of the dental wear in this postulated fossil ape. The presence of
sand grains in the canine was the only point which Marston brought
forward as evidence of fossilization of this tooth, quite ignoring
its high nitrogen content, its low fluorine content, the fact that
the so-called ferruginous layer is flexible, that the heavy wear
is in complete contradiction to the size of the pulp cavity, and
the absence of secondary dentine. ... Lastly, it should be recorded that the identity of the hoaxer still remains unknown." |
Later, when Weiner was writing his book The Piltdown Forgery (1955: 69), referring to the media hubbub over what happened at the meeting, Weiner wrote,
| "There was in fact ... no disturbance of any kind". |
A.T. Marston & K.P. Oakley, 1954. "24 February, 1954", Proceedings of the Geological Society of London No. 1508: xlv-xlvii.
Marston and Oakley each made presentations about the chemical stains on the stone tools found at Piltdown. A summary of this event appeared later in Nature (Anonymous 1954a). It's not clear how Oakley had arranged his talk to come after Marston's, but Marston had notified Oakley of his intention to speak at the meeting three weeks earlier. (Spencer 1990b: 237-238.)
J.S. Weiner et al., 1955. "Further contributions to the solution of the Piltdown problem", Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Geology 2.6: 225-287.
This is the official publication that summed up the Piltdown forgery. Marston is mentioned on pages 232, 233, 258, and in the bibliography.
|
"Both [Weidenreich] and Miller left the peculiar wear on the [Piltdown]
canine unexplained. Marston (1952) has attempted to go further and has
theorised as to the movements which might produce the Piltdown wear,
supposing that the canine were an upper canine. But that such movements
were ever made by a jaw with a structure, so far as it is known, and
muscular attachments indistinguishable from that of modern apes remains
completely hypothetical. ... Lyne (1916) drew attention to the extraordinary contradiction between the apparent immaturity of the canine and its excessive wear ... Millar (1918) and Marston (1952) threw doubt on Pycraft's belief in the 'near-human' alignment of the molars in the jaw. ... Friederichs (1932), Montagu (1951), Marston (1952) and others believed that the remains represented two distinct fossil creatures... ... The age of the Piltdown skull has been questioned on the score that it included nasal bones in close association (Marston 1950: 293). ... there was always the possibility that the nasal bones did not belong to the Piltdown skull. ... To judge from their composition they were not obtained from the same source as the other cranial fragments." |
Marston had made similar observations about the canine as Lyne had. (Marston 1952a: 4-5)
Here is some correspondence between Oakley, Weiner and Clark that influenced the passages above (see Spencer 1990b: 199, 226, 248):
|
"I have been puzzled that an incompletely erupted canine could show
such an extreme degree of wear ... and I think, therefore, that
Marston must be right on this particular point." (Clark to Weiner,
Aug. 14, 1953) "I dare say that Le Gros [Clark] will be writing to you about the turbinates [the nasal bones]. It is hardly to be doubted that these things are not turbinates at all, but bits of shaft of long bones not necessarily human. So much for Marston's 'claim' to have dated the skull by these 'fragile' turbinates!!" (Weiner to Oakley, Dec. 22, 1953) "What do you think about [Oakley's] suggestion re Marston? I think it might be a good idea to note this reference, if only to stop him from continuing to [?word] and try and get credit for himself." (Clark to Weiner, Aug. 5, 1954) |
K.P. Oakley, 1979. "Suspicions about Piltdown Man", New Scientist 82: 1014.
| "I recall too, that A.T. Marston, the amateur archaeologist who found some of the famous 'Swanscombe Man' bones, visited the museum on several occasions before I was in charge of the 'fossil man' collection there, and he had permission to measure and make a microscopical examination of the Piltdown mandible and teeth. Looking at the Piltdown molar teeth with the wisdom of hindsight, the evidence of artificial abrasion seems quite obvious; but examining them with no such thought in mind, Marston, although a professional dentist, did not notice any features which he regarded as unnatural." |
There's no precise date given for Marston's visits, assuming Oakley's recollections are accurate. The Museum had loaned Marston casts (Marston 1936d), but none of Marston's articles specifically mention seeing the originals until after the forgery was discovered ("with a lens of 20 x magnification", Marston 1954a: 4). He mentions the drill-holes that test samples were taken from, which suggests a date between 1949 and 1953.
It should be noted that in 1950, Oakley was involved in preparing replicas of the Piltdown teeth. Although he was a professional geologist, he didn't notice any unnatural features either. He explained the slight marks of abrasion on the teeth as being from "the action of river sand" (Spencer 1990b: 192).