You weren't there, you believe the writings and claims of (Man)
Just as Piltdown man was claimed to be a transitional form in 1912, a fabricated (Fraud) that continued for 41 years
Wikipedia: The Piltdown Man was a
paleoanthropological fraud in which bone fragments were presented as the
fossilised remains of a previously unknown
early human. Although there were doubts about its authenticity virtually from the beginning, the remains were still broadly accepted for many years, and the falsity of the hoax was only definitively demonstrated in 1953. An extensive scientific review in 2016 established that amateur archaeologist
Charles Dawson was its likely perpetrator.
[1]
Group portrait of the Piltdown skull being examined. Back row (from left): F. O. Barlow,
G. Elliot Smith,
Charles Dawson,
Arthur Smith Woodward. Front row: A. S. Underwood,
Arthur Keith,
W. P. Pycraft, and
Ray Lankester. Note the portrait of
Charles Darwin on the wall. Painting by John Cooke, 1915.
In 1912, Charles Dawson claimed that he had discovered the "missing link" between ape and man. In February 1912, Dawson contacted
Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the
Natural History Museum, stating he had found a section of a human-like skull in
Pleistocene gravel beds near
Piltdown, East Sussex.
[2] That summer, Dawson and Smith Woodward purportedly discovered more bones and artifacts at the site, which they connected to the same individual. These finds included a
jawbone, more skull fragments, a set of teeth, and primitive tools.
Smith Woodward reconstructed the skull fragments and hypothesised that they belonged to a human ancestor from 500,000 years ago. The discovery was announced at a Geological Society meeting and was given the
Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni ("Dawson's dawn-man"). The questionable significance of the assemblage remained the subject of considerable controversy until it was conclusively exposed in 1953 as a forgery. It was found to have consisted of the altered
mandible and some teeth of an
orangutan deliberately combined with the
cranium of a fully developed, though small-brained,
modern human.
The Piltdown hoax is prominent for two reasons: the attention it generated around the subject of human
evolution, and the length of time, 41 years, that elapsed from its alleged initial discovery to its definitive exposure as a composite forgery.