The Piltdown Skull Site: the rise and fall of Britainʹs first geological National Nature Reserve and its place in the history of nature conservation

The Piltdown hoax is one of the best known cases of scientific forgery in the world and has been the subject of hundreds of papers, books, articles, press reports and web-pages. Whilst the story of the hoax has secured a place in history, the pioneering role played by the site of the Piltdown ‘finds’, the Piltdown Skull Site, in the early days of British nature conservation has been forgotten. This paper describes how the Piltdown Skull Site in East Sussex, England, a site now known to be of little or no scientific importance, almost became Britainʹs first National Nature Reserve (NNR), and how, in 1952, it did become Britainʹs first geological NNR. It describes how the newly formed Nature Conservancy (NC) and the British Museum (Natural History) (BM(NH)) worked together at Piltdown to undertake innovative site management that played a part in exposing the hoax and describes what happened to the NNR as the details of the forgery emerged. Although the NC was clearly embarrassed by the NNR once the hoax was revealed, it is argued here that there was little to be ashamed of and much to be commended.