Martin Hinton

Martin Alister Campbell Hinton (June 29, 1883 - October 3, 1961) was a British zoologist.

Hinton joined the staff of the Natural History Museum in 1921, working on mammals, in particular rodents. He became Deputy keeper of Zoology in 1927 and keeper in 1936, retiring in 1945.

Hinton is among those associated with the Piltdown Man hoax, a fabricated skull allegedly discovered at a dig in Piltdown, England, and presented as a missing link between man and ape.

“In the 1970s a trunk was discovered that belonged to Martin Hinton, a volunteer in the British Museum (Natural History) at the time of the discoveries. It contained what appeared to be test fakes – bones that had been cut and stained to look ancient. Many believe this put Hinton at the heart of the fraud; others think he may simply have been trying to work out how others made their fakes.”(BBC News Web)