A Little History

From Nature Illuminated published by The J. Paul Getty Museum From Fossils, Evidence of Vanished Worlds by Yvette Gayrard-Valy

The ancient Greeks realized that species changed over time, and that some fossils belonged to organisms that had once lived in very different environments. These findings, however, didn't survive the subsequent centuries intact. To medieval and even Renaissance Europeans, fossils were steeped in mystery and superstition, although the Renaissance saw a surge of interest in the natural world, and in collecting curiosities. Some aristocrats even published descriptions of their collections, like this sample of flora and fauna from the court of Emperor Rudolf II. Collections often consisted of misidentified or forged specimens, but we should be grateful for these curiosity cabinets just the same — they were the forerunners of modern museums.

Strange ideas didn't end with the Middle Ages. Savants took centuries to unravel the process of fossilization, many of them suspecting that nature fashioned odd stones just for fun. Living animals often proved as puzzling as fossils when scholars had to make sense of the weird specimens that explorers brought back to Europe from other continents. And belief in monsters and omens persisted well into the Renaissance, fueled in part by the religious tensions of the Reformation. But over time, fascination with oddities led to a better understanding of the history of life. Starting in the late 18th century, Georges Buffon and later Georges Cuvier suggested that the earth was much older than anyone had previously imagined. By studying the fossil record, 19th-century geologist John Phillips divided the ages of the earth into three eras: Paleozoic (old life), Mesozoic (middle life) and Cenozoic (new life). Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species describing natural selection as a driving force in evolution. William Buckland and Gideon Mantell published the first descriptions of a certain group fossil reptiles, later to be given the much more popular name of "dinosaurs" by Sir Richard Owen.

While scientists began to accurately identify fossils on the other side of the Atlantic, knowledge lagged behind in America as people who found fossil bones in the New World often attributed them to giants. No believer in giants, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson still clung to the hope that animals thought extinct elsewhere would turn up living in western North America.

Once people understood what dinosaurs were, two of the America's most famous fossil collectors, E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh, devoted the last 20 years of their lives to outdoing each other in naming new species. By the early 20th century, dinosaurs were big business, or at least big social events. The menu at right announced the banquet at the Museum of Natural History in Paris for the unveiling of Diplodocus. A little over a decade later, the American Museum of Natural History would launch a series of spectacular excavations in Mongolia, the world's next fossil treasure-trove.

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Illustrations in title graphic from Dinosaurs Past and Present: Volume II by Gregory S. Paul, et al. and Scenes from Deep Time by Martin J.S. Rudwick
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Narrative text and graphic design © 1996-2008 by Michon Scott - Updated May 10, 2008