The history of dinosaur hunting

Since the 1800s, fossil hunting has largely meant long days in the field, a packed lunch, sharp eyes, and a fair amount of luck. But these days, palaeontology is increasingly being driven by technology. From satellite imaging that traces ancient riverbeds, to mapping hidden layers of sediment, and CT scanners that can peer inside rock without so much as a scratch - the hunt for dinosaurs has gone digital. In this episode, we follow the scientists using cutting-edge tools to uncover creatures lost to time - not just bones in the ground, but new ways of reading the deep history of life on Earth. But first, where does the term dinosaur actually come from? To explain more is the palaeontologist David Norman at Christ’s College, Cambridge…

David - The name 'dinosaur' was first used in an article written by a chap called Richard Owen. Richard Owen became, or was one of, the most eminent anatomists in the Victorian era. Back in the 1830s he took on a project which was to look at all fossil reptiles in the United Kingdom, which is ridiculous, but at the time there weren't that many, so it was a plausible project. And he noted, when he looked at the various collections of fossils in private individuals as well as in small museums, that there were one or two unusual ancient reptiles whose remains suggested that they were unlike reptiles living today. And he had enough little bits of anatomy, in particular leg bones and parts of the hip and pelvis, that allowed him to, despite the fragmentary nature of this material, suggest that these are so different from any reptiles living today that I'm going to have to create a new category. And he created the term dinosaur, a terribly great or fearfully great reptile, to recognise the anatomical differences that he'd spotted. It was a brilliant insight. He was proved to be correct, I wonder myself whether I would have recognised the significance of those anatomical differences back in the 1830s. But in 1842 he wrote a report and in that report he created the term dinosauria as a category of ancient fossil reptiles.

Will - As you said, they knew these were different, big and different creatures to what was alive at that point today. They had no notion that the earth was 4.6 billion years old. They had no notion that these dinosaurs existed from 370 to 65 million years ago. What did they know?

David - They did know that the Earth had a history. Some progressive work that'd been done in France by a chap called Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brogniart, who was a colleague. They documented fossils that had been discovered in Paris and in the local areas of France and were able to demonstrate that actually the age of the earth seemed to have a very deep part which they called the primary period of time. These are very ancient rocks and you find very few fossils and things. And then there was the secondary era and the secondary era coincided with the time when dinosaurs lived and you found much more abundant fossils of various types, including dinosaurs, but lots of other seashells and various things. And then beyond that there was the tertiary, which was much more recent, where you start to see animals that are closer to the ones living today. So the depth of time was beginning to emerge, even if time, chronological time, could not be imposed upon it. That came much later.

Will - So this sparked something of a fervour, is it fair to say, of dinosaur fossil hunting past those points? If you go to Lyme Regis, if you have a poke around on the beach floor, you may well find an ammonite, a bellumnite, something like that, something really interesting to find. Was it the case the first rudimentary means of fossil hunting was going to where it was known they were found and digging further?

David - Yes. The fame created by the work of somebody like Mary Anning created a huge interest and it sort of, like a tidal wave, spread out from Lyme Regis across the country. People would start looking in quarries quite naturally, because quarries might show you rocks of ancient times and just might reveal a fossil. But also, the Victorian era was a time of huge expansion and one of the big expansions in Britain was the development of the railways and in North America was the development of the railroads. And the progression of the railroads across the western states of North America began to reveal, inadvertently, rocks that were of an ancient time and that created, in a sense, an interest in scientists who would accompany the railroaders and visit rocks that were exposed during the development of the railways. And two rather famous people called Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, fantastic names, were two rivals who really wanted to know about these fossils that were found in the American Midwest. And they created almost a stampede of interest because they started to find lots and lots of dinosaurs. Ever since then, really, the interest in dinosaurs just erupted.

Will - The process involved in forming a fossil is very particular and really rather delicate. I think it was Bill Bryson who wrote that less than one-tenth of one percent of all species will ever end up as a fossil. Did the original excavators know what rocks to look out for?

David - Not to start with, no. It was serendipitous to start with. There's been feedback between understanding geology and the nature of the decomposition process. It's called taphonomy. It's trying to understand the burial process that leads to the formation of fossils. And that feedback means that we're now much more better informed about the type of rock you would go and look for, a particular type of sedimentary rock, one that's associated with a lake environment, perhaps, or a near-shore environment, because you know there's a higher probability of finding fossils in those areas. You don't look in volcanic rocks. There are certain rocks that you just naturally avoid. But we now have mapped so much of the world that we've got a pretty good idea where to look in terms of the chances of being successful when you arrange an expedition to collect fossils.