<
https://theconversation.com/africans-discovered-dinosaur-fossils-long-before-the-term-palaeontology-existed-218833>
"Credit for discovering the first dinosaur bones usually goes to British
gentlemen for their finds between the 17th and 19th centuries in England.
Robert Plot, an English natural history scholar, was the first of these to
describe a dinosaur bone, in his 1676 book
The Natural History of
Oxfordshire. Over the next two centuries dinosaur palaeontology would be
dominated by numerous British natural scientists.
But our study shows that the history of palaeontology can be traced back much
further into the past. We present evidence that the first dinosaur bone may
have been discovered in Africa as early as 500 years before Plot’s.
We’re a team of scientists who study fossils in South Africa. Peering through
the published and unpublished archaeological, historical and palaeontological
literature, we discovered that there has been interest in fossils in Africa for
as long as there have been people on the continent.
This is not a surprise. Humankind originated in Africa:
Homo sapiens has
existed for at least 300,000 years. And the continent has a great diversity of
rock outcrops, such as the Kem Kem beds in Morocco, the Fayum depression in
Egypt, the Rift Valley in east Africa and the Karoo in southern Africa,
containing fossils that have always been accessible to our ancestors.
So it wasn’t just likely that African people discovered fossils first. It was
inevitable.
More often than not, the first dinosaur fossils supposedly discovered by
scientists were actually brought to their attention by local guides. Examples
are the discovery of the gigantic dinosaurs
Jobaria by the Tuaregs in Niger
and
Giraffatitan by the Mwera in Tanzania.
Our paper reviews what’s known about African indigenous knowledge of fossils.
We list fossils that appear to have long been known at various African sites,
and discuss how they might have been used and interpreted by African
communities before the science of palaeontology came to be."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
