Reginald Allender Smith (1873 – 18 January 1940) was an

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

to late

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

materials. He was Keeper of British and Medieval

Antiquities Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Artifacts from earlier periods such as the Meso ...

at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

from 1927-1938, and authored several books and British Museum catalogues. Smith attended

University College, Oxford University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the univer ...

. He was first appointed to a job at the British Museum in 1898, and was succeeded by T D Kendrick upon his retirement from the role of Keeper. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1903, serving as vice president from 1926 to 1929 and as director from 1929 to 1940. He was on the side of the

skeptics Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...

during the inquiry as to whether or not

Piltdown man 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 ...

was genuine, known for having offered a single line of testimony concerning a "bone implement" purported to be a tool. He remarked simply, it was reported, on "the possibility of the

bone A bone is a Stiffness, rigid Organ (biology), organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red blood cell, red and white blood cells, store minerals, provid ...

having been found and whittled in recent times."Quoted in Charles Dawson and A. Smith Woodward, "On a Bone Implement from Piltdown (Sussex)." ''Quarterly Journal of the

Geological Society The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

'' Vol 71 (1915, p. 144). See also Joseph Sidney Weiner and Chris Stringer's '' The Piltdown Forgery: The classic Account of the Most Famous and Successful Hoax in Science''.

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2003. p.50.

Selected publications

* * ''

A Guide to the Antiquities of Roman Britain in the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...

''.

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

: Trustees of the

, 1922. * ''

British Museum Guide to Anglo-Saxon Antiquities British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

''.

. Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities, 1923. Reprinted: Ipswich, Suffolk: Anglia Pub., 1993. * '' Flints: An Illustrated Manual of the Stone Age for Beginners''. London: British Museum, 1928.

Notes

1873 births 1940 deaths Employees of the British Museum British archaeologists British non-fiction writers British male writers Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Male non-fiction writers {{UK-archaeologist-stub