History of invertebrate paleozoology

The history of invertebrate paleozoology (also spelled palaeozoology) differs from the history of paleontology

History of paleontology

The history of paleontology traces the history of the effort to understand the history of life on Earth by studying the fossil record left behind by living organisms...

in that the former usually emphasizes paleobiology

Paleobiology

Paleobiology is a growing and comparatively new discipline which combines the methods and findings of the natural science biology with the methods and findings of the earth science paleontology...

and the paleoecology

Paleoecology

Paleoecology uses data from fossils and subfossils to reconstruct the ecosystems of the past. It involves the study of fossil organisms and their associated remains, including their life cycle, living interactions, natural environment, and manner of death and burial to reconstruct the...

of extinct marine invertebrates

Marine invertebrates

Marine invertebrates are animals that inhabit a marine environment and are invertebrates, lacking a vertebral column. In order to protect themselves, they may have evolved a shell or a hard exoskeleton, but this is not always the case....

, while the latter typically emphasizes the earth science

Earth science

Earth science is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only known life-bearing planet. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences...

s and the sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock are types of rock that are formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles to settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution....

remains of terrestrial

Terrestrial animal

Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land , as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water , or amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats...

vertebrate

Vertebrate

Vertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...

s.

The historical development of sub-vertebrate

Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...

or non-vertebrate

Invertebrate

paleozoology

Paleozoology

Paleozoology, also spelled as palaeozoology , is the branch of paleontology or paleobiology dealing with the recovery and identification of multicellular animal remains from geological contexts, and the use of these fossils in the reconstruction of prehistoric environments and ancient...

may also be described as the history of invertebrate paleobiology or as the history of invertebrate paleontology. Nearly synonym

Synonym

Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...

ous are the history of marine paleozoology, history of marine paleobiology, and history of marine paleontology -- although the latter three may cover prehistoric fish

Prehistoric fish

Prehistoric fish refers to early fish that are known only from fossil records. They are the earliest known vertebrates, and include the first and extinct fish that lived through the Cambrian to the Tertiary. The study of prehistoric fish is called paleoichthyology...

es, shark

Shark

Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....

s and simpler sea-dwelling organisms.

By far, invertebrate paleozoology is the easiest type of fossil collecting

Fossil collecting

Fossil collecting is the collection of fossils for scientific study, hobby, or profit. Fossil collecting, as practiced by amateurs, is the predecessor of modern paleontology and many still collect fossils and study fossils as amateurs...

. Unlike the difficult-to-analyze and hard-to-interpret fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s of paleobotany

Paleobotany

Paleobotany, also spelled as palaeobotany , is the branch of paleontology or paleobiology dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments , and both the evolutionary history of plants, with a...

(plants) and micropaleontology

Micropaleontology

Micropaleontology is the branch of paleontology that studies microfossils.-Microfossils:...

(microbes), and unlike the rarely found and poorly preserved skeleton

Skeleton

The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...

s of vertebrate paleontology

Vertebrate paleontology

Vertebrate paleontology is a large subfield to paleontology seeking to discover the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct animals with vertebrae or a notochord, through the study of their fossilized remains...

, invertebrate fossils are usually both common and simple to identify. This is because many prehistoric invertebrates were hard-shelled mollusks, brachiopod

Brachiopod

Brachiopods are a phylum of marine animals that have hard "valves" on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear end, while the front can be opened for feeding or closed for protection...

s, trilobite

Trilobite

Trilobites are a well-known fossil group of extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the Atdabanian stage of the Early Cambrian period , and they flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic era before...

s, bryozoans, crinoid

Crinoid

Crinoids are marine animals that make up the class Crinoidea of the echinoderms . Crinoidea comes from the Greek word krinon, "a lily", and eidos, "form". They live both in shallow water and in depths as great as 6,000 meters. Sea lilies refer to the crinoids which, in their adult form, are...

s or coral

Coral

Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...

s who were buried amid marine, sediment

Sediment

Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....

-preserving conditions; and therefore frequently fossilized.

Origins of invertebrate paleozoology

Stone-age people were without doubt the very first fossil collector

Fossil collecting

s. Fossilized echinoderm

Echinoderm

Echinoderms are a phylum of marine animals. Echinoderms are found at every ocean depth, from the intertidal zone to the abyssal zone....

s have been found in Dunstable

Dunstable

Dunstable is a market town and civil parish located in Bedfordshire, England. It lies on the eastward tail spurs of the Chiltern Hills, 30 miles north of London. These geographical features form several steep chalk escarpments most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the north.-Etymology:In...

, Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

, central England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, decorating a long-buried human skeleton

Human skeleton

The human skeleton consists of both fused and individual bones supported and supplemented by ligaments, tendons, muscles and cartilage. It serves as a scaffold which supports organs, anchors muscles, and protects organs such as the brain, lungs and heart....

; the prehistoric gravesite was Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

.

In widely separated, ancient societies around the globe, there once were many legend

Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...

s and tale

Tale

Tale may refer to:*Cautionary tale, a traditional story told in folklore, to warn its hearer of a danger*Fairy tale, a fictional story that usually features folkloric characters and enchantments*Folk tale, a story passed-down within a particular population, which comprises the traditions of that...

s of great floods, sea serpent

Sea serpent

A sea serpent or sea dragon is a type of sea monster either wholly or partly serpentine.Sightings of sea serpents have been reported for hundreds of years, and continue to be claimed today. Cryptozoologist Bruce Champagne identified more than 1,200 purported sea serpent sightings...

s, dragon

Dragon

A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

s, sea monster

Sea monster

Sea monsters are sea-dwelling mythical or legendary creatures, often believed to be of immense size.Marine monsters can take many forms, including sea dragons, sea serpents, or multi-armed beasts. They can be slimy or scaly and are often pictured threatening ships or spouting jets of water...

s, and invertebrate cryptozoa

Cryptozoa

Cryptozoa is the collective name for the small animals that permanently live under conditions with high relative humidity. Many of them can be found in any sample of wet soil; a large part of the cryptozoa has not yet been identified by science....

associated with so-called formed stones or figured stones of sea shells, fishes, corals, sea lilies, track

Animal tracks

Animal tracks are the imprints left behind in soil, snow, mud, or other ground surfaces that an animal walk across. Animal tracks are used by hunters in tracking their prey and by naturalists to identify animals living in a given area....

s, burrow

Burrow

A burrow is a hole or tunnel dug into the ground by an animal to create a space suitable for habitation, temporary refuge, or as a byproduct of locomotion. Burrows provide a form of shelter against predation and exposure to the elements, so the burrowing way of life is quite popular among the...

s, and trail

Trail

A trail is a path with a rough beaten or dirt/stone surface used for travel. Trails may be for use only by walkers and in some places are the main access route to remote settlements...

s. But, as civilization

Civilization

Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...

s progressed, these odd rock

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...

s began to be recognized as the fossilized remains and trace

Trace fossil

Trace fossils, also called ichnofossils , are geological records of biological activity. Trace fossils may be impressions made on the substrate by an organism: for example, burrows, borings , urolites , footprints and feeding marks, and root cavities...

s of prehistoric animals.

Scholars in ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

produced some of the first scientific insights. Preceding Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

by two thousand years, Anaximander of Miletus (611 to 547 BCE) proposed a non-creationist, evolutionary theory of life

Biota (ecology)

Biota are the total collection of organisms of a geographic region or a time period, from local geographic scales and instantaneous temporal scales all the way up to whole-planet and whole-timescale spatiotemporal scales. The biota of the Earth lives in the biosphere.-See...

. After Xenophanes of Colophon (576 to 480 BCE) scrutinized fossils of mollusks and other sea-dwelling creatures entombed in rock strata, Xenophanes pronounced that these fossils were evidence of once-living animal

Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...

s. Similarly, after examining fossil sea shells around 440 BCE, Empedocles

Empedocles

Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements...

of Akragas hypothesized that natural selection was occurring over vast, incomprehensible expanses of time.

By the middle of the 4th century BCE, Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

was composing On the Origins of Animals. Both he and his follower/successor Theophrastus

Theophrastus

Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...

speculated that plastic forces within the earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

had turned animals into fossils of stone

Rock (geology)

.

In the medieval Islamic world

Islamic Golden Age

During the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...

, Avicenna

Avicenna

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...

(979 to 1039 CE), in his The Book of Healing
The Book of Healing
The Book of Healing is a scientific and philosophical encyclopedia written by Abū Alī ibn Sīnā from Asfahana, near Bukhara in Greater Persia. Despite its English title, it is not in fact concerned with medicine...

(1027), offered an explanation of how the stoniness

Rock (geology)

of fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s was caused. Aristotle

Aristotle

previously explained it in terms of vapor

Vapor

A vapor or vapour is a substance in the gas phase at a temperature lower than its critical point....

ous exhalation

Exhalation

Exhalation is the movement of air out of the bronchial tubes, through the airways, to the external environment during breathing....

s, which Avicenna modified into the theory of petrifying

Petrifaction

In geology, petrifaction, petrification or silicification is the process by which organic material is converted into stone by impregnation with silica. It is a rare form of fossilization...

fluid

Fluid

In physics, a fluid is a substance that continually deforms under an applied shear stress. Fluids are a subset of the phases of matter and include liquids, gases, plasmas and, to some extent, plastic solids....

s (succus lapidificatus), which was elaborated on by Albert of Saxony

Albert of Saxony

Albert of Saxony may refer to:* Albert of Saxony * Albert I, Duke of Saxony * Albert, Duke of Saxony * Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen * Albert of Saxony...

in the 14th century and accepted in some form by most naturalist

Naturalist

Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...

s by the 16th century.

Paleozoology was an area of interest in the European Renaissance of scientific inquiry. Significantly, Georgius Agricola - a founder of mineralology - discussed and illustrated invertebrate fossils in his De Natura Fossilium
De Natura Fossilium
De Natura Fossilium is a scientific text written by George Bauer also known as Georgius Agricola, first published in 1546. The book represents the first scientific attempt to categorize minerals, rocks and sediments since the publication of Pliny's Natural History...

(1546 / 1558).

Although remembered mostly for his development of binomial nomenclature

Binomial nomenclature

Binomial nomenclature is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, although they can be based on words from other languages...

and biotic

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

systematics

Systematics

Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of terrestrial life, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees...

in his Systema Naturae
Systema Naturae
The book was one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carolus Linnaeus. The first edition was published in 1735...

(1735), Carolus Linnaeus

Carolus Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus , also known after his ennoblement as , was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology...

also described many prehistoric marine invertebrates which he had observed within Silurian

Silurian

The Silurian is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Devonian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya . As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the...

strata in his native Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. And while Jean-Étienne Guettard

Jean-Étienne Guettard

Jean-Étienne Guettard , French naturalist and mineralogist, was born at Étampes, near Paris.In boyhood, he gained a knowledge of plants from his grandfather, who was an apothecary, and later he qualified as a doctor in medicine...

(1715 to 1786) discussed the marine paleoecology

Paleoecology

of ancient mollusks, more and more fossils were being reported from the Americas and Australasia

Australasia

Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

.

Georges L. L. Buffon subsequently described seven geologic Epochs of Nature (1778) wherein he boldly argued that fossiliferous sedimentary strata

Sedimentary rock

proved that the world

World

World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....

was at least 70,000 years old. In 1795 the very first geochronologic

Geochronology

Geochronology is the science of determining the age of rocks, fossils, and sediments, within a certain degree of uncertainty inherent to the method used. A variety of dating methods are used by geologists to achieve this, and schemes of classification and terminology have been proposed...

period -- the Jurassic

Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...

-- was named.

19th century developments

Soon thereafter, Buffon's colleague Chevalier de Lamarck

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de la Marck , often known simply as Lamarck, was a French naturalist...

-- a founder of invertebrate systematics

Systematics

and invertebrate paleontology

Invertebrate paleontology

Invertebrate paleontology is sometimes described as Invertebrate paleozoology or Invertebrate paleobiology....

-- published still-more shell fossils in his Systematics of Animals Without Backbones, (1801) and his Natural History of Animals Without Backbones (1815 to 1822), so as to illustrate global change

Global change

Global change refers to planetary-scale changes in the Earth system. The system consists of the land, oceans, atmosphere, poles, life, the planet’s natural cycles and deep Earth processes. These constituent parts influence one another...

s in paleogeography. Lamarck also argued that the more adaptable prehistoric invertebrates were the animals that survived environmental change

Environmental change

Environmental change is defined as a change or disturbance of the environment by natural ecological processes, and is described in the following articles:*Climate change*Environment...

-- a prelude to the concept

Concept

The word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...

of survival of the fittest
Survival of the fittest
"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase originating in evolutionary theory, as an alternative description of Natural selection. The phrase is today commonly used in contexts that are incompatible with the original meaning as intended by its first two proponents: British polymath philosopher Herbert...

.

Next, William Smith

William Smith (geologist)

William 'Strata' Smith was an English geologist, credited with creating the first nationwide geological map. He is known as the "Father of English Geology" for collating the geological history of England and Wales into a single record, although recognition was very slow in coming...

employed invertebrate index fossil

Index fossil

Index fossils are fossils used to define and identify geologic periods . They work on the premise that, although different sediments may look different depending on the conditions under which they were laid down, they may include the remains of the same species of fossil...

s to map British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

outcrop

Outcrop

An outcrop is a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth. -Features:Outcrops do not cover the majority of the Earth's land surface because in most places the bedrock or superficial deposits are covered by a mantle of soil and vegetation and cannot be...

s in his Geological Map of England and Wales with Part of Scotland (1815), and in his book the very next year, Strata Identified by Organized Fossils (1816).

Sir Roderick Impey Murchison and Charles Lapworth

Charles Lapworth

Charles Lapworth was an English geologist.-Biography:He was born at Faringdon in Berkshire and educated as a teacher at the Culham Diocesan Training College near Abingdon, Oxfordshire. He moved to the Scottish border region, where he investigated the previously little-known fossil fauna of the area...

quarried middle Paleozoic era index fossil

Index fossil

s, such as the extinct trilobites, extinct graptolite

Graptolite

Graptolithina is a class in the animal phylum Hemichordata, the members of which are known as Graptolites. Graptolites are fossil colonial animals known chiefly from the Upper Cambrian through the Lower Carboniferous...

s, and mostly extinct brachiopod

Brachiopod

s. Their efforts led to the latter's ground-breaking treatise

Treatise

A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject.-Noteworthy treatises:...

, The Silurian System (1839), and to the naming of the Ordovician

Ordovician

The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...

, Silurian

Silurian

, Devonian

Devonian

The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...

and Permian

Permian

The PermianThe term "Permian" was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil; Murchison asserted in 1841 that he named his "Permian...

geologic periods. Eclipsing Maurchison's inventory of Silurian fossils, however, was Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...

's 1835 discovery of even-older Cambrian period fossils. Three years later, Sedgwick proposed that its stratigraphic era be named the Paleozoic

Paleozoic

The Paleozoic era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon, spanning from roughly...

.

Meanwhile, yet another Briton

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

, Sir Charles Lyell, penned his Principles of Geology
Principles of Geology
Principles of Geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation, is a book by the Scottish geologist Charles Lyell....

(1830) and Elements of Geology (1838) in which he divided the Tertiary into the epoch

Epoch (geology)

An epoch is a subdivision of the geologic timescale based on rock layering. In order, the higher subdivisions are periods, eras and eons. We are currently living in the Holocene epoch...

s of Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...

, Miocene

Miocene

The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...

, Oligocene

Oligocene

The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present . As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly...

and Pliocene

Pliocene

The Pliocene Epoch is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 2.588 million years before present. It is the second and youngest epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch...

. By 1834 to 1838, naturalist

Naturalist

Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...

s from France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

to Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

were using the term "paleontology

Paleontology

Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...

", and adding yet other names to its prehistoric eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages.

The provocative Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is a unique work of speculative natural history published anonymously in England in 1844. It brought together various ideas of stellar evolution with the progressive transmutation of species in an accessible narrative which tied together numerous...

(1844 to 1853) by then-anonymous

Anonymity

Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...

Robert Chambers

Robert Chambers was a Scottish publisher, geologist, proto-evolutionary thinker, author and journal editor who, like his elder brother and business partner William Chambers, was highly influential in mid-19th century scientific and political circles.Chambers was an early phrenologist, and was the...

, Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...

's joint essay (1858) with Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

, and Darwin's Origin of Species (1859 to 1872) popularized the evolutionary theories of natural selection

Natural selection

Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....

. Indeed, in the very first edition

First edition

The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed “from substantially the same setting of type,” including all minor typographical variants.- First edition :...

of his Origin of Species (1859), Darwin even speculated

Speculation

In finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...

that the earth might be half a billion years old. Scientific critics, however, pressured him to withdraw this notion from all subsequent editions. In this book Darwin also expressed frustration at the seemingly total absence of Pre-Cambrian creatures prior to the Cambrian explosion

Cambrian explosion

The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively rapid appearance, around , of most major phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record, accompanied by major diversification of other organisms, including animals, phytoplankton, and calcimicrobes...

of the invertebrates, since many critics saw this absence as proof

Evidence

Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...

of creationism

Creationism

Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...

.

Around the same time, James Hall

James Hall (paleontologist)

James Hall was an American geologist and paleontologist. He was a noted authority on stratigraphy and had an influential role in the development of American paleontology.-Early life:...

produced his comprehensive, many volumes of Paleontology of New York State (1847 to 1894), based on his years of collecting trilobites, graptolites, brachiopods, crinoid

Crinoid

s, echinoids, mollusks and other ancient marine invertebrates.

Inspired by Darwin's manifesto

Manifesto

A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...

, Thomas Henry Huxley emphatically cited embryologic and fossil evidence for the evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

of "higher" invertebrates from "lower" cnidarians, worm

Worm

The term worm refers to an obsolete taxon used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, and stems from the Old English word wyrm. Currently it is used to describe many different distantly-related animals that typically have a long cylindrical...

s and mollusks, thereby elaborating what he concluded was Man's Place in Nature (1863). Another Darwinist, Ernst Haeckel

Ernst Haeckel

The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...

, proposed a Protozoa

Protozoa

Protozoa are a diverse group of single-cells eukaryotic organisms, many of which are motile. Throughout history, protozoa have been defined as single-cell protists with animal-like behavior, e.g., movement...

-Metazoa theory

Theory

The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...

of animal origins, while arguing that embryo

Embryo

An embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination...

nic "ontogeny

Ontogeny

Ontogeny is the origin and the development of an organism – for example: from the fertilized egg to mature form. It covers in essence, the study of an organism's lifespan...

recapitulates phylogeny" throughout organic prehistory

Prehistory

Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...

. Haeckel popularized his paleozoologic ideas with majestic genealogical trees of the Animal Kingdom

Animal

in his General Morphology of Organisms (1866).

A half-century later, the genetic

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

conclusions of Gregor Mendel

Gregor Mendel

Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance...

(1822 to 1884) were revived by The Mutation Theory propounded by Hugo de Vries

Hugo de Vries

Hugo Marie de Vries ForMemRS was a Dutch botanist and one of the first geneticists. He is known chiefly for suggesting the concept of genes, rediscovering the laws of heredity in the 1890s while unaware of Gregor Mendel's work, for introducing the term "mutation", and for developing a mutation...

, thereby fortifying Darwin's 19th-century theory of evolution.

20th century developments

Around the same time, paleozoologist Charles Doolittle Walcott

Charles Doolittle Walcott

Charles Doolittle Walcott was an American invertebrate paleontologist. He became known for his discovery in 1909 of well-preserved fossils in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada.-Early life:...

proved trilobite

Trilobite

s to be arthropod

Arthropod

An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton , a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods are members of the phylum Arthropoda , and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and others...

s -- and not at all like mollusks. Then, in 1910, he discovered the best-preserved Cambrian

Cambrian

The Cambrian is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, lasting from Mya ; it is succeeded by the Ordovician. Its subdivisions, and indeed its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name for Wales, where Britain's...

fossils ever found: the Burgess shale

Burgess Shale

The Burgess Shale Formation, located in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, is one of the world's most celebrated fossil fields, and the best of its kind. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils...

fauna

Fauna

Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...

. Over the next seven years, Walcott excavated 80,000 fossils from the fossiliferous site.

Meanwhile, in The Origin of Continents and Oceans (1915 / 1929), Alfred Wegener

Alfred Wegener

Alfred Lothar Wegener was a German scientist, geophysicist, and meteorologist.He is most notable for his theory of continental drift , proposed in 1912, which hypothesized that the continents were slowly drifting around the Earth...

outlined his heretical

Heresy

Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

theory

Theory

of continental drift

Continental drift

Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other. The hypothesis that continents 'drift' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596 and was fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912...

. Although he cited invertebrate fossils and continent

Continent

A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...

al geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

in support of his idea, another half-century would pass before Wegener's theory would be vindicated by findings in geophysics

Geophysics

Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...

and plate tectonics

Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...

.

By that time, 20th-century sciences—such as biometrics

Biometrics

Biometrics As Jain & Ross point out, "the term biometric authentication is perhaps more appropriate than biometrics since the latter has been historically used in the field of statistics to refer to the analysis of biological data [36]" . consists of methods...

, organic chemistry

Organic chemistry

Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, composition, reactions, and preparation of carbon-based compounds, hydrocarbons, and their derivatives...

, electron microscopy and molecular phylogenetics -- were aiding invertebrate paleobiologists as they searched for evidence even in the rugged, barren lands of Saharan Africa, Sinkiang, the Mongolian Plateau

Mongolian Plateau

The Mongolian Plateau is part of the larger Central Asian Plateau and has an area of approximately 2,600,000 square kilometres. It is occupied by Mongolia in the north and Inner Mongolia in the south. The plateau includes the Gobi Desert as well as dry steppe regions...

, and Antarctica.

In 1947, paleontologist Reg Sprigg

Reg Sprigg

Reginald Claude Sprigg, AO, HonDSc ANU, HonDSc Flinders, MSc Adelaide, FTSE was an Australian geologist and conservationist. At age 17 he became the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society of South Australia. In 1946, in the Ediacara Hills, South Australia he discovered the Ediacara biota, an...

discovered the Ediacaran fauna -- the best-preserved fossil invertebrates of the billion-year-long Proterozoic

Proterozoic

The Proterozoic is a geological eon representing a period before the first abundant complex life on Earth. The name Proterozoic comes from the Greek "earlier life"...

eon. Darwin's 1859 embarrassment at the absence of Pre-Cambrian fossils was now put at rest.