Found Fossils, Dinosaurs and the History of Extinction

Though the term “fossil” – a derivation of the Latin word for “dug up” — was first used in 16th century France, the petrified impressions of centuries old flora and fauna — including some of what later come to be known as dinosaurs — have been known to man, though wholly misunderstood, since the dawn of civilization. For thousands of years in China, the gigantic remains of prehistoric lizards and mammals were used as the principle justification for the existence of dragons and even prescribed as a folk medicine. Meanwhile, in the West, scholars from Aristotle to Leonardo da Vinci concluded that fossils were indeed proof of ancient life, while less sound conclusions — such as that fossils were evidence of a long extinct race of giants and the Biblical flood — were propagated by thinkers seeking to reconcile natural science with theology.

One such theorist was the first curator Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, Robert Plot, who in 1676 sketched what he thought to be the thighbone of a colossal man. Though his initial supposition was incorrect, Plot’s discovery would eventually lead to the classification of the first dinosaur genus ever to be categorized by man: megalosaurus (above: Femur megalosaurus – photo by Jeffdelonge).

Over the next century, the number of accidentally discovered fossils from around the world soared upwards, until it became clear that the hugely proportioned remains could not belong to any extant species. In 1796, French naturalist Georges Cuvier was the first to put forward that such animals had been “destroyed by some kind of catastrophe” and were something heretofore unknown to the human race: extinct. Not did his work fly in the face of creationism and a supposed Great Chain of Being dictated by God alone, but also laid the foundations for the theory of evolution that would soon be popularized by Charles Darwin in the second half of the 19th century. (Left: Painting of Baron Georges Cuvier by François-André Vincent [Public domain])

Cuvier spent the rest of his career cataloguing as many of the bygone creatures as he could locate, including the first pterodactyl and mosasaur, as well as Robert Plot’s aforementioned megalosaurus. While he did speculate that there had indeed been an “age of reptiles” before man when giant saurians roamed the Earth, it wasn’t until 1841 that British scientist Richard Plot, drawing Culvier’s conclusion, realized that some fossils were so different that they deserved a distinct name. He subsequently dubbed this kingdom of extinct reptiles “Dinosauria” – meaning “terrible lizards” – and cemented the credibility of a new scientific field — paleontology – in the minds of the general public.

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