William Boyd Dawkins and The Vic

During the high summer of 1876 two spectacular Ice Age objects were discovered in Robin Hood Cave at Creswell Crags: the canine of an extinct sabre- toothed cat and an animal rib bone engraved with a sketch of a horse's head. In an instant these two finds put Creswell firmly on the map of globally significant sites, yet before the decade was out they had become the centre of a hostile debate, with the three senior investigators clashing amid accusations of deception, hoaxing and negligence. In the eye of the storm stood William Boyd Dawkins, curator and Professor of Geology at Manchester and no stranger to controversy. This book presents the first biography of this controversial archaeologist, geologist and palaeontologist, drawing on contemporary sources, Dawkins' published and unpublished archive and the author's twenty five year research career in the British Palaeolithic. It broadly explores Dawkins' long life and career and examines in depth his role in the Creswell affair, a little known incident from the infancy of Palaeolithic archaeology that was as scandalous in its day as the infamous Piltdown hoax of 1913 and which remains equally mysterious.

302 pages

Dimensions approx.: 24.2 x 16.5 x 3cm