Kenneth Page Oakley (7 April 1911 – 2 November 1981) was an English physical anthropologist,

palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

and geologist. Oakley, known for his work in the

Fluorine absorption dating Fluorine absorption dating is a method used to determine the amount of time an object has been underground. Fluorine absorption dating can be carried out based on the fact that groundwater contains fluoride ions. Items such as bone that are in th ...

of fossils by fluorine content, was instrumental in the exposure of the

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 ...

hoax in the 1950s. Oakley was born and died in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.

Education

Oakley's early education took place at the Grammar School at Amersham. As a young man he attended University College School, Hampstead, and then University College School, London. The latter is where he earned both his BSc as a major in

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

and

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...

, and his PhD in the same field upon his completion of the program in 1938 when he was 27 years old.

Career

Publications

Kenneth Oakley authored and contributed to several publications that developed the field of human evolution over the course of his life. One of these publications is the novel ''Man the Tool-Maker'' (1972) in which he thoroughly outlines the discoveries of pre-hominin and hominin tool use. Oakley does so by walking the reader through the historical background of about the previous conceptions of evolution, why tool use may have started, various tool compositions and purposes as discovered through fossils, and how tool use may have influenced the development of unique cultures. Oakley also includes several illustrations ranging from diagrams of how tools may have been used and actual images of fossilized tools as they have changed over time. ''Man the Tool-Maker'' has been republished several times since its initial publication in 1949 for a total of six separate editions by 1976. Another source that Oakley contributed to is the ''Catalogue of Fossil

Hominids The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ...

Part III: Americas, Asia, Australasia'' which he, Bernard Grant Campbell, and Theya Ivitsky Molleson all edited. This catalog, including ''Part I: Africa'' and ''Part II: Europe'', organized all the identifying information of the hominids that had been discovered until that time in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including where they were discovered, the key features of the specimen, and their archeological contexts. Oakley was tasked with providing confirmation of the geological and absolute ages of the specimens, since that was considered his speciality.

Other Publications Contributed to by Oakley

*''Piltdown man'', Bobbs-Merrill, 1955 *''The succession of life through geological time'', British Museum, 1967 *''Frameworks for dating fossil man'',

Weidenfeld & Nicolson Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It has been a division of the French-owned Orion Publishing Group since 1991. History George Weidenfeld a ...

; 3rd ed, 1969 *''Catalogue of Fossil Hominids: Africa'', British Museum, 1977 *''Relative dating of the fossil hominids of Europe'', British Museum, 1980

Exposure of
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 ...
Hoax

In November 1953 Oakley, along with Drs. J. S. Weiner and W. E.

le Gros Clark Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark (5 June 1895 – 28 June 1971) was a British anatomist, surgeon, primatologist and palaeoanthropologist, today best remembered for his contribution to the study of human evolution. He was Dr Lee's Professor of ...

published ''The Solution of the Piltdown Problem'' in the ''Bulletin of The

British Museum of Natural History The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum ...

: Geology Department''. This publication provided the discovered evidence that proved the "Piltdown Man", a skull that was initially deemed a new species and potential " missing link" called '' Eoanthropus dawsoni'' that had been discovered in 1913 by archeologist Charles Dawson, was in fact a hoax. Through a complete re-analysis of the specimen's teeth abrasion, fluorine content,

nitrogen Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...

content, and coloring, Oakley and his colleagues concluded that the skull fragments were not of one specimen. Instead, it appeared that the skull was a fabrication produced out of a modern

ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...

mandible that had been skillfully fused to the cranial fragments of another species. This discovery by Oakley and his colleagues resulted in a vital reconstruction of the existing fossil record such that '' Eoanthropus dawsoni'' was removed, and proper research for other evidence of human evolution in other parts of the world could be encouraged.

References