An illustration of 'The earliest known inhabitant of England', based upon the fragments of skull and jawbone supposedly discovered in a gravel pit at Piltdown, East Sussex, England. Considered at the time to be the 'missing link' between ape and man, some scientists doubted that it was what it was purported to be. In 1953 it was proved to be a hoax, a combination of the skull of a medieval man, the jaw of an orangutan, and chimpanzee teeth.