The history of paleontology has been an ongoing effort to understand the history of life on Earth by understanding the fossil record left behind by living organisms. Inevitably it has been closely tied to geology and the effort to understand the history of the Earth itself. In the 17th and 18th centuries there was progress made in understanding the nature of fossils and the at the end of the 18th century the work of Georges Cuvier lead to the emergence of paleontology, in association with comparative anatomy, as a scientific discipline. The expanding knowledge of the fossil record also played an increasing role in the development of geology, particularly stratigraphy. The first half of the 19th century saw a rapid increase in knowledge about the past history of life on Earth and the progress towards definition of the geologic time scale. After Charles Darwin published the Origin of Species in 1859, much of the focus of paleontology shifted to understanding evolutionary paths, including human evolution, and evolutionary theory. The last half of the 20th century saw a renewal of interest in mass extinctions and their role in history of life on Earth. An ammonite fossil Eocene fossil fish of the genus Knightia Petrified wood fossil formed through permineralization. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... The history of the World is human history from the dawn of humanity to the present. ... Georges Cuvier Baron Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (August 23, 1769–May 13, 1832) was a French naturalist and zoologist. ... Paleontology or palaeontology (see Spelling differences) is the study of the history and development of life on Earth, including that of ancient plants and animals, based on the fossil record (evidence of their prehistoric existence as typically preserved in sedimentary rocks). ... Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of organisms. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, is basically the study of rock layers and layering (stratification). ... // For other uses, see time scale. ... Charles Robert Darwin FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist who achieved lasting fame by producing considerable evidence that species originated through evolutionary change, at the same time proposing the scientific theory that natural selection is the mechanism by which such change occurs. ... The 1859 edition of On the Origin of Species First published in 1859, The Origin of Species (full title On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life) by British naturalist Charles Darwin is one of the pivotal... In 1832, while travelling on the Beagle, naturalist Charles Darwin collected giant fossils in South America. ... Human evolution is that part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of humans as a distinct species. ... An extinction event (also extinction-level event, ELE) is a period in time when a large number of species die out. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

Prior to the 17th century

As early as the 6th century BC Xenophanes of Colophon recognized that some fossil shells were remains of shellfish and indicated that what was now dry land was once under the sea. It is also well known that in one of his unpublished notebooks Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) concluded that some fossil sea shells were the remains of shellfish. However in both cases it is clear that the fossils were relatively complete remains of mollusk species that very closely resembled living species and thus were relatively easy to classify. ^[1] Xenophanes of Colophon (Greek: Ξενοφάνης, 570 BC-480 BC) was a Greek philosopher, poet, and social and religious critic. ... An ammonite fossil Eocene fossil fish of the genus Knightia Petrified wood fossil formed through permineralization. ... Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath: architect, anatomist, sculptor, engineer, inventor, mathematician, musician, and painter. ...

In the 16th century there was still little recognition of the organic origin of the fossil remains of living organisms. As the etymology of the word fossil, which comes from the Latin for things having been dug up, indicates, the term was applied to wide variety of stone and stone like objects without regard to whether they might have an organic origin. 16th century writers like Conrad Gesner and Georg Agricola were more interested in classifying such objects by their properties, both physical and mystical, than they were in their origins. ^[2] Both the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy provided intellectual frameworks where it was reasonable to believe that stony objects might grow within the earth to resemble living things. Neoplatonic philosophy maintained that there could be affinities between living and non living objects that could cause one to resemble the other. The Aristotelian school maintained that it was possible for the seeds of living organisms to enter the ground and generate objects that resembled those organinsims. ^[3] An ammonite fossil Eocene fossil fish of the genus Knightia Petrified wood fossil formed through permineralization. ... Conrad Gessner (Konrad Gessner, Conrad von Gesner, Conradus Gesnerus) (26 March 1516-13 December 1565) was a Swiss naturalist. ... Georg Agricola Georgius Agricola (March 24, 1494 – November 21, 1555) was a German scholar and man of science. ... This article needs cleanup. ... Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is an ancient school of philosophy beginning in the 3rd century A.D. It was based on the teachings of Plato and Platonists; but it interpreted Plato in many new ways, such that Neoplatonism was quite different from what Plato taught, though not many Neoplatonists would...

17th Century

The 17th century, often referred to as the Age of Reason, saw fundamental changes in natural philosophy that were reflected in the analysis of fossils. In 1665 Robert Hooke published Micrographia, an illustrated collection of his observations with a microscope. One of these observations was entitled Of Petrify'd wood, and other Petrify'd bodies, which included a comparison between petrified wood and ordinary wood. He concluded that petrified wood was ordinary wood that had been soaked with water impregnated with stony and earthy particles. He then went on to suggest that several kinds of fossil sea shells were formed from ordinary shells by a similar process. He argued against the prevalent view that such objects were Stones form'd by some extraordinary Plastick virtue latent in the Earth itself. ^[4] The Age of Reason is either Thomas Paines book The Age of Reason. ... Robert Hooke, FRS (July 18, 1635 – March 3, 1703) was an English polymath who played an important role in the scientific revolution, through both experimental and theoretical work. ... Hookes drawing of a flea Micrographia is a historical book by Robert Hooke, detailing the then twenty-eight year-old Hookes observations through various lenses. ...

Illustration from Steno's 1667 paper of a Shark head with a tooth and a fossil tooth

In 1667 Nicholas Steno wrote a paper on a large shark head he had dissected the year before, in which he compared the teeth of the shark with the common fossil objects known as tongue stones. He concluded that the fossils must have been shark teeth. This caused Steno to take an interest in the question of fossils and to address some of the objections that were raised against their organic origin. As a result he did some geological research and in 1669 published Forerunner to a Dissertation on a solid naturally enclosed in a solid. In that work Steno drew a clear distinction between objects such as rock crystals that really were formed within rocks and objects such as fossil shells and shark teeth that were formed outside of the rocks they were found in. Steno realized that certain kinds of rock had been formed by the successive deposition of horizontal layers of sediment and that fossils were the remains of living organisms that had become buried in that sediment. Steno who, like almost all 17th century natural philosophers, believed that the earth was only a few thousand years old, resorted to the Biblical flood as a possible explanation for fossils of marine organism that were found very far from the sea. ^[5] Nicolaus Steno. ... Noah or Nóach (Rest, Standard Hebrew נוֹחַ Nóaḥ, Tiberian Hebrew נֹחַ Nōªḥ; Arabic نوح Nūḥ) is a character from the Book of Genesis who builds an ark to save his family and the world...

Despite the considerable influence of Forerunner, naturalists such as Martin Lister (1638-1712) and John Ray (1627-1705) continued to question the organic origin of some fossils. They were particularly concerned about objects such as fossil Ammonites, which Hooke had claimed were organic in origin, which did not closely resemble any known living species. This raised the possibility of extinction, which they found difficult to accept for philosophical and theological reasons. ^[6] Martin Lister (c. ... John Ray. ... The Dodo, shown here in illustration, is an often-cited[1] example of extinction. ...

18th century

In his 1778 work Epochs of Nature Georges Buffon referred to fossils, in particular the discovery of what he thought of as fossils of tropical species such as elephants and rhinoceros in northern Europe, as evidence for the theory that the earth had started out much warmer than it currently was and had been gradually cooling. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (September 7, 1707 - April 16, 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, biologist, cosmologist and author. ... Genera and Species Loxodonta Loxodonta cyclotis Loxodonta africana Elephas Elephas maximus Proboscidea is an order including only one extant family, Elephantidae or the elephants, with three species: the Savannah Elephant and Forest Elephant (which were collectively known as the African Elephant), and the Asian Elephant (formerly known as the Indian... Genera Ceratotherium Dicerorhinus Diceros Rhinoceros Coelodonta (extinct) Elasmotherium (extinct) The rhinoceros (commonly called rhino for short; plural can be either rhinoceros or rhinoceroses) is any of five surviving species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. ...

illustration of an Indian elephant jaw and a mammoth jaw from Cuvier's 1796 paper on living and fossil elephants

In 1796 Georges Cuvier presented a paper on living and fossil elephants, in which he used comparative anatomy to analyze skeletal remains of Indian and African elephants, mammoth fossils, and fossil remains of an animal recently found in North America that he would later name mastodon. He established for the first time that Indian and African elephants were different species, and even more importantly that mammoths had been a different species from either and therefore must be extinct. He further concluded that the mastodon must be another extinct species that was even more different from Indian or African elephants than mammoths had been. Cuvier’s ground breaking work in paleontology and comparative anatomy, lead to the wide spread acceptance of the reality of extinction. ^[7] It also lead Cuvier to advocate the geological theory of catastrophism to explain the succession of living things revealed by the fossil record. Cuvier also pointed out that since mammoths and wooly rhinoceros were not the same species as the elephants and rhinoceros currently living in the tropics, their fossils could not be used as evidence for a cooling earth. Cuvier made another powerful demonstration of the power of comparative anatomy when he presented a second paper in 1796 on a large fossil skeleton from Paraguay, which he named megatherium and identified as a giant sloth by comparing its skull to those of two living species of tree sloth. Georges Cuvier Baron Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (August 23, 1769–May 13, 1832) was a French naturalist and zoologist. ... Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of organisms. ... For other uses, see Elephant (disambiguation). ... Species Mammuthus africanavus   African mammoth Mammuthus columbi   Columbian mammoth Mammuthus exilis   Pygmy mammoth Mammuthus jeffersonii   Jeffersonian mammoth Mammuthus trogontheri   Steppe mammoth Mammuthus meridionalis Mammuthus primigenius   Woolly mammoth Mammuthus lamarmorae   Sardinian Dwarf Mammoth A mammoth is any of a number of an extinct genus of elephant, often with long curved tusks... A Mastodon skeleton in museum in Bismarck, North Dakota. ... In biology and ecology, extinction is the ceasing of existence of a species or group of species. ... The Dodo, shown here in illustration, is an often-cited[1] example of extinction. ... Catastrophism is the theory that Earth has been affected by sudden, short-lived, violent events that were sometimes worldwide in scope. ... Binomial name Coelodonta antiquitatis Blumenbach, 1807 The Woolly Rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) is an extinct species of rhinoceros that survived the last ice age. ... Megatheriinae were a group of elephant-sized ground sloths that lived from 2 million to 8,000 years ago. ... Families Rathymotheriidae Scelidotheriidae Mylodontidae Orophodontidae Megalonychidae Megatheriidae Ground sloths are extinct edentate (Order Xenarthra) mammals that are believed to be relatives of tree sloths and three-toed sloths. ...

William Smith made extensive use of fossils and the concept of faunal succession to make sense of rock strata when he produced the first geological map of England in 1799. This was a pioneering application of stratigraphy. William Smith is the name of: William Smith (1697–1769), father of John Smith, Doctor Thomas Smith, Joshua Hett Smith, and Chief Justice William Smith William Smith (abolitionist) (1756–1835), dissenter and British M.P. whose constituencies included Camelford, Sudbury, and Norwich William Smith (actor) (born 1934) William Smith (boxer... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A geologic map is a special-purpose map made for the purpose of showing subsurface geological features. ... Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, is basically the study of rock layers and layering (stratification). ...

First half of the 19th century

The age of reptiles

Illustration of fossil Iguanadon teeth with a modern iguana jaw from Mantell's 1825 paper describing iguanadon

Cuvier identified a fossil found in Maastricht as a giant marine reptile that he named Mosasaurus in 1808. He also identified, from a drawing, another fossil found in Bavaria as a flying reptile and named it pterodactyl and speculated that an age of reptiles had preceded the first mammals. ^[8] Mary Anning, a professional fossil collector since age 11, collected the fossils of a number of marine reptiles from the Jurassic marine strata at Lyme Regis. These included, in 1811, the first ichthyosaur skeleton to be recognized as such, and the first plesiosaur in 1821. Many of her discoveries would be described scientifically by the geologists William Conybeare and William Buckland. ^[9] In 1824 Buckland found, in some Jurassic deposits from Stonesfield, and described the lower jaw of a giant carnivorous land dwelling reptile he called megalosaurus. That same year Gideon Mantell realized that some large teeth he had found in 1821, in Cretaceous rocks from Tilgate, belonged to a giant herbivorous land dwelling reptile he called iguanodon, because the teeth resembled those of an iguana. The growing evidence that an age of giant reptiles had preceded the age of mammals caused great excitement in scientific circles. ^[10] In 1842 the anatomist Richard Owen would assign both megalosaurus and iguanodon to a new order of reptiles he called dinosauria. Mosasaurus (MOH-zah-sawr-us) was a mosasaur, a carnivorous, aquatic reptile, somewhat resembling a crocodile, with elongated heavy jaws: it lived in the Maastrichtian age of the Cretaceous period (Mesozoic era), around 70-65 millions years ago. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Mary Anning. ... The Jurassic Period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from about 200 Ma (million years ago), at the end of the Triassic to 146 Ma, at the beginning of the Cretaceous. ... Taxonomy See text Ichthyosaurs (Greek for fish lizard - ιχθυς meaning fish and σαυρος meaning lizard) were giant marine reptiles that resembled fish and dolphins. ... Families Plesiosaurs (IPA ) (Greek: plesios, near to + sauros, lizard) were large, carnivorous aquatic reptiles. ... William Daniel Conybeare (June 7, 1787 - August 12, 1857) was an English geologist and paleontologist. ... William Buckland (12 March 1784 - 24 August 1856) was a prominent English geologist and palaeontologist who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, a proponent of Old Earth creationism and Flood geology who later became convinced by the glaciation theory of Louis Agassiz. ... Species Mantell, 1827 Waldmann, 1974 Megalosaurus (Great Lizard, from Greek, μεγαλο-/megalo- meaning big, tall or great and σαυρος/sauros meaning lizard) was a genus of large meat-eating therapod dinosaurs of the Jurassic Period of what is now southern England. ... Gideon Algernon Mantell (February 3, 1790 – November 10, 1852) was an English obstetrician, geologist, and paleontologist. ... The Cretaceous Period is one of the major divisions of the geologic timescale, reaching from the end of the Jurassic Period (i. ... Species (neotype) (holotype) Iguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaurs. ... Sir Richard Owen KCB (July 20, 1804–December 18, 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist. ... Orders Saurischia    Sauropodomorpha    Theropoda Ornithischia Dinosaurs are giant reptiles that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for most of their 165-million year existence. ...

Uniformitarianism and the history of life

Partly in response to what he saw as unsound and unscientific speculations by William Buckland and other practitioners of flood geology, Charles Lyell advocated the geological theory of uniformitarianism. Lyell was largely successful in convincing geologists of the idea that the geological features of the earth were largely due to the action of the same geologic forces that could be observed in the present day acting over an extended period of time. However, he was much less successful in converting people to his view of the fossil record, which he claimed showed no true progression. ^[11] William Buckland (12 March 1784 - 24 August 1856) was a prominent English geologist and palaeontologist who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, a proponent of Old Earth creationism and Flood geology who later became convinced by the glaciation theory of Louis Agassiz. ... Flood geology (also creation geology or diluvial geology) is a creationist perspective on geologic phenomena which assumes the literal truth of the Great Flood described in Genesis. ... Charles Lyell The frontispiece from Principles of Geology Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet Kt (November 14, 1797 – February 22, 1875), Scottish lawyer, geologist, and populariser of uniformitarianism. ... Uniformitarianism has had two separate meanings, both more prevalent in 19th-century discourse: Within religious philosophy, Uniformitarianism (with a capital U) is the belief that the Universe has existed as it is now for an infinite time and will continue to exist for ever. ...

Geological time scale and the history of life

Geologists such as Adam Sedgwick, discoverer of the Devonian, and the Cambrian and Roderick Murchison, discoverer of the Silurian, and the Permian continued, despite some contentious disputes, to describe new geological epochs making great advances in stratigraphy. By 1840 much of the geologic timescale had taken shape. All three of the periods of the Mesozoic era and all the periods of the Paleozoic era except the Ordovician had been defined. ^[12] It was understood that not only had there been an age of reptiles preceding the age of mammals, but there had a time (during the Silurian) when life had been restricted to the sea, and a time when invertebrates had been the dominant form of life. Adam Sedgwick Adam Sedgwick (March 22, 1785–January 27, 1873) was one of the founders of modern geology. ... Disambiguation: Devonian is sometimes used to refer to the Southwestern Brythonic language, and the people of the county of Devon are sometimes referred to as Devonians The Devonian is a geologic period of the Paleozoic era. ... The Cambrian is a major division of the geologic timescale that begins about 542 mya (million years ago) at the end of the Proterozoic eon and ended about 488. ... Sir Roderick Murchison Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (February 19, 1792 – October 22, 1871), was an influential Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian era. ... The Silurian is a major division of the geologic timescale that extends from the end of the Ordovician period, about 443. ... The Permian is a geologic period that extends from about 299. ... Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, is basically the study of rock layers and layering (stratification). ... The geologic time scale is used by geologists and other scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occurred during the history of the Earth. ... The Mesozoic is one of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon. ... The Paleozoic Era is a major division of the geologic timescale, one of four geologic eras. ... The Ordovician period is the second of the six (seven in North America) periods of the Paleozoic era. ...

2nd half of the 19th century

Some developments in the 20th century

Notes

References

• Rudwick, Martin J.S. The Meaning of Fossils. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago 1972. ISBN 0-226-73103-0
• McGowan, Christopher The Dragon Hunters. Persus Publishing: Cambridge MA 2001. ISBN 0-7382-0282-7
• Rudwick, Martin J.S. Georges Cuvier, Fossil Bones, and Geological Catastrophes (The University of Chicago Press, 1997)ISBN 0-226-73106-5
• Robert Hooke Micrographia The Royal Society 1665