Shelley Emling - The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World

Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World

Shelley Emling

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THE FOSSIL HUNTER

Copyright Shelley Emling, 2009.

All rights reserved.

For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

First published in 2009 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
in the United Statesa division of St. Martins Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

ISBN: 978-0-230-61156-6

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Emling, Shelley.

The fossil hunter : dinosaurs, evolution, and the woman whose discoveries changed the world / Shelley Emling.

p.cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0230611567
1. Anning, Mary, 17991847. 2. Women paleontologistsEnglandBiography. 3. PaleontologistsEnglandBiography. 4. Discoveries in scienceHistory19th century. I. Title.

QE707.A56E46 2009

560.92dc22 [B] 2009017900

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: October 2009

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

To Chris, Ben, and Olivia, who make
everythingeverydaybetter

Since her death, Mary Anning has garnered a small but hardcore group of fans who have spent countless hours of time researching her life. Without them, it would be impossible for someone like me to tell her story in my own way. William Lang (18781966) was Keeper of the Department of Geology at the British Museum, and, after retiring to Charmouth, he gathered together a wealth of information on Marys work and background. Hugh Torrens is a geologist and historian who also has done an enormous amount of research on Mary, and was kind enough to meet with me. Other writers and historians who have done incredible work on Mary and other scientists of her era include Thomas W. Goodhue, John Fowles, Deborah Cadbury, Patricia Pierce, Christopher McGowan, and Paul J. McCartney.

Personally Id like to thank my agent, the tireless Agnes Birnbaum, who never, ever gave up. Thank you to my incredible editor at Palgrave Macmillan, Alessandra Bastagli, who believed inand delighted inMarys story. Also thanks to Colleen Lawrie at Palgrave for kindly helping me through all the nitty-gritty of delivering a book.

Thanks to the many friends and family membersespecially Carolyn, Ginger, Paula, and Special Kwho have always taken an interest in my progress on the book. Thanks also to Tom and Annette Buk-Swienty for inspiring me and to Peter and Rachel Hayward for kindly allowing me to stay in their lovely homea great base for visits to Lyme Regis. Thanks to Sasee Catsyou know who you arefor the daily laughs. Lets hope they never end. Anything I manage to accomplish is dedicated to the memory of my wonderful motheralways. Finally, my biggest debt of gratitude goes to Scott Norvell, who must be the most supportive husband on the planet.

I only hope this book will make you appreciate Mary Annings extraordinary talents the way I do. I have taken a few liberties in an effort to fill in some gaps in Marys life but tried to make it clear when this was the case. It is incredible that so many people have never heard of this great woman. Although many childrens books have been written about her accomplishments as a young girl, less attention has been paid to her string of discoveries as an adult. Not only was this uneducated woman able to hold her own with some of the best minds of Europe, but she also displayed an amazing ability to both ferret out and restore fossils. Perhaps this book will go at least a small step toward introducing Mary to more people. Thats my only wish. Enjoy!

She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore
The shells she sells are sea-shells, Im sure For if she sells sea-shells on the sea-shore
Then Im sure she sells sea-shore shells.

Tongue-twister written by Terry Sullivan in 1908 and inspired by Mary Anning

Pre-Victorian England exemplified a powerful period in the history of science, a time when one never-before-seen monster after another was being cajoled from its Jurassic tomb, drawn out into the light of day where it could blow holes through the Biblical account of the earths history. These creatureswith their bat-like wings, snake-like necks, and big, bulging eyesvividly brought to life a prehistoric era that was more bizarre and harrowing than anyone had ever imagined. Indeed, they forever changed the way people thought about the world around them.

Today it is hard to relate to the mindset of people living in the early nineteenth century, decades before dinosaurs burst onto the scene. Without question, most people accepted the idea of an earth created in six divinely ordered twenty-four-hour time slots, in 4004BCa year derived at by meticulously tracing the biblical genealogies. After creating the sun, moon, stars, and oceans, God made creatures of the air, sea, and land on day five, followed by the appearance of the most magnificent and most complex creaturemanon day six. The land animals harmoniously shared the garden with Adam and Eve and all were vegetarian until the first couple sinned and thus began meat-eating and mortality. Later, during Noahs time, the global flood decimated all life except for that which had been corralled into his ark. Fossilized seashells found on mountaintops were proof positive of a deluge so great it swept up and over everything in its path.

In the early 1800s, most people had absolute faith in the fact that species never changed or evolved, or became extinct. Everything that existed had always existed. The world was pretty simple, really. There wasnt any radioactivity or relativity, extinction or evolution, to muddle things up. It was during this time that a young working-class English girl named Mary Anning began raising eyebrows with her daily forays along the dangerously crumbling strata of Englands southern coastline, decked out in voluminous tattered skirts as she ran the gauntlet of high tides and landslides. Always she was on a hunt for curiosities she could sell to seafaring tourists in order to put food on her table.

By birthright, Mary should never have grown up to be a famous fossil hunter and geologist. In addition to being dirt poor, Mary Anning also was marginalized by odds clearly not stacked in her favor: her sex, regional dialect, lack of formal education, and adherence to the Dissenter faith, a religious strain that didnt conform to the teachings of the established Church of England.

But she enjoyed one powerhouse advantage: the very good fortune of having been born in exactly the right place at the right time, in 1799 in an unassuming English town called Lyme Regis alongside some of the most geologically unstable coastline in the world. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, its wobbly cliffs held the remains of a baffling array of ancient reptiles, reptiles that used to roam the land and inhabit the seas hundreds of millions of years in the past.