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The History of Fossils
Even though the ancient Greek Aristotle had in 4BC considered the presence of fossils of marine animals in high places to be a problem, that recognition that fossils are the remains of life was not universally acknowledged until very recently. Only a minority of 'pre-scientific philosophers' believed that fossils were the remains of ancient organisms.
Instead, religious ideas of gods, God or our own ancestors were all woven in to creation myths of both the Earth and the unknown artefacts found within it.
It was not only the pre-scientific community who picked up shells from the beaches and created these myths. The scientific community, whether struggling under the Biblical creation myths or free of any such religious restrictions, were at pains to explain the resemblance of fossils of organisms without acknowledging them as the remains of organisms.
The following section describes popular myths, and also the scientific conclusions of Robert Plot.
Popular Myths
Identification with a familiar image is always necessary when faced with the unknown. An association with what is recognised is the first step in identification of the unrecognised - hence the requirement within biology and palaeontology for species classification.
In the pre-science days, many beliefs were held - including those of a minority who thought that fossils were the remains of ancient creatures. A more popular philosophy was that fossils had grown within the Earth, and were organisms that had not had the chance to 'germinate' properly to reach the surface and live, as intended - by whoever.
Alternatively, fossils of long-extinct animals that could not be recognised were the remains of mythical animals, or parts of known ones.
Snakes Heads
http://f.diebold.free.fr/20Yorkshire/York01.html
The beautifully-coiled shells of ammonites have been found for many centuries in many countries, and had various origins assigned to them.
Noted by humankind since Biblical times, they were first called "Ammon's Stones" due to their resemblance to the ram's horns of Ammon, the ancient Egyptian God of life and procreation.
In Yorkshire, remains of Jurassic ammonites were thought to be the coiled snakes that St Hilda had turned to stone.
St Hilda (614-680 AD) was an abbess in Whitby, North Yorkshire.
The place was overrun with snakes: there were "so many serpents in the wilderness of the woods that the virgins did not dare peep out of their cells, nor go to draw water". St Hilda severed their heads with a whip and threw their remains over the cliff edge, turning them to stone in the process.
They kept their shape and thus gave eyewitness to her miracle.
Local craftsmen sometimes carved the snakeheads onto ammonites, for sale to the unsuspecting.
Ammonites are even now sometimes referred to by their early name of 'snakestone', and the local ammonite Hildoceras was named for the Abbess.
Devils Toenails
Gryphaea, identified as the Devils' toenail
Rather than the remains of a known animal, many fossils were ascribed to the body parts of mythical creatures. The large curled shells of the bivalve Gryphaea were common fossils in parts of Europe. They were often found, and identified as 'Devils Toenails', because of their resemblance to horny cuticle of the hoof of a goat.
Tonguestones
Dragons - or possibly snakes - often had their tongues preserved in stone, and these were frequently found in diverse locations.
In the 1660s, the Dane Nicolaus Steno made a startling observation: these tonguestones were identical to the teeth of modern sharks.
Robert Plot
Robert Plot, Professor of 'Chymistry' at the University of Oxford and first curator of the Ashmolean Museum, is best known for his "Natural History of Oxfordshire", which he published in 1677.
In this publication he faced the debate of whether fossils found in the form of shellfish represented some 'plastic virtue' of the rock, or whether they owed their form to the shells of actual creatures. In the latter case, they would have been brought by "the Deluge, Earthquake or other means" and since filled with mud, clay and 'petrifying juices', then turned to stone with time.
Plot rejected the idea that fossil shells had ever been living creatures, and suggested instead that they were actually the crystallisations of mineral salts. Their resemblance to animals was as coincidental as the regular appearance of stalactites or snowflakes.
A bivalve, identified as petrified urinous salts
As a chemist, Plot was familiar with the crystallisation patterns of a wide range of solutions, and he was able to name the salts that he believed were responsible for the characteristic forms of various fossils. The striated bivalve fossils were clearly the product of petrified 'urinous salts'. It had, after all, already been show that on freezing, crystals of urine 'shoot from a centre, but generally be more extended on one side' - in exactly the same pattern as a bivalve shell.
Even when fossils clearly showed a resemblance to living organisms, this did not prove that one came from the other. A strong school of thought at the time was that of the 'neoplatonists', who held that the whole cosmos is a 'web of hidden affinities'. This web is made visible in many ways, including the resemblance of living and non-living entities.
Thus, the organic resemblance of stones could be attributed to a pervasive moulding force (or 'plastic virtue') that governed both the growth of living organisms, and the formation of inanimate forms within the Earth.
Plot was thus easily able to accept and explain the similarities of 'Formed Stones' to four-footed beasts, in which he recognised the form of the head of a horse, with ears, eye-sockets and even the crest of its mane. This Formed Stone he named the 'Hippocephaloides" - a fossil that William Smith later used in his strata table (1799) of England.
According to the neoplatonists, man was the 'microcosm', or epitome, of the universe. As a 'reflection in miniature' of the structures, variety and purpose of the universe around him, it was understandable that any feature in the universe around him could have some analogy, token or symbol within his being. Although based on a different assumption, this is not so different from the idea that God created Man in His own image - and God encompasses all Creation.
This analogy Plot carried through to medicinal uses - a stone that resembled a body part must surely be related, and therefore be useful to heal. This was not based on superstition, but on the recognition of the fundamental pattern of nature - a specific remedy for a specific ill could be found by identifying a link in the web.
Scrotum Humanum
However; some stones he did recognise as the petrified remains of organisms. The thigh-bone of a dinosaur he accepted as the remains of a creature. He knew nothing of dinosaurs, and, by comparison with a living specimen, was able to reject the idea it was the femur of an elephant. Instead, he concluded it was the fossil of the bone of a man or woman - believing us and all other creatures to have had the stature of giants in the days before the Flood.
In another case, the detached base of a dinosaur thighbone which measured two feet (60 cm) in diameter was identified and described as the scrotum of this giant man, and named Scrotum Humanum.
The thigh bone has since been identified as that of the Megalosaurus.
Links to Plates from Plot's "Natural History of Oxfordshire"
Beautifully detailed drawings of fossils can be seen in an on-line reproduction of plates from Plot's "Natural History of Oxfordshire" within the Oxford Museum pages. These are charmingly classified into:
- Stones relating to the Heavenly Bodies, or to Air (Moon-stone, Star-stones, Brontiae)
- Stones relating to Air, or to the Watery Kingdom (Thunder-bolts, stalactites, Cockle-stones)
- Stones belonging to the Watery Kingdom (Snail-stones, Cockle-stones)
- Stones belonging to the Watery Kingdom (Echinites, Cornu Ammonis)
- Stones resembling Plants or Animals (Fruits, Snail-stones, Worm-stones)
- Stones resembling parts of Animals, or parts of Men (Horse's head, eye-ball, ear)
- Stones resembling parts of Men, or things of Art (Heart, kidney, button-mould, whet-stone)
The next page discusses the study of fossils. Read on, use the navigation links on the left, or return Home.
For any comments, suggestions or contributions, please e-mail me at: portsdown@bbm.me.uk