Ever wonder how people figured out there used to be such things as dinosaurs? Curious about how scientists learned to reconstruct fossil skeletons? The knowledge we take for granted today was slow in coming, and along the way, scientists and scholars had some weird ideas.
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Timeline Tidbits
1171-As later chronicled by Ralph of Coggeshall in Essex, a river bank collapses to reveal giant fossil bones that are attributed to a 40-foot-tall man.
1551-1558-Conrad Gesner publishes Historia Animalium ("History of Animals") in four volumes.
1676-Naturalist Robert Plot describes what is actually a dinosaur bone. Although he accurately identifies it as the distal end of a femur, he attributes it to a giant human.
1725-Enslaved Africans dig up mammoth teeth on Stono Plantation in South Carolina. The plantation owner attributes the teeth to a giant victim of Noah's flood. Interviewing the slaves, English naturalist Mark Catesby learns that they recognize the teeth as belonging to an elephant.
Things you should know about this site
This is not a comprehensive history of paleontology or biology, nor is it the result of systematic research. It's not the work of a professional scientist, educator or historian. It's just an eclectic collection of old illustrations and information.
Although this site focuses more on the history of science than on evolution, it treats evolution as a scientific fact, not "just a theory."