© Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. INTRODUCTION For general queries, contact
[email protected] 01 Dinosaurs intro pp1-67.indd 7 25/05/2016 17:45 © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. The spectacular plated dinosaur Stegosaurus For general queries, contact
[email protected] 01 Dinosaurs intro pp1-67.indd 8 25/05/2016 17:45 © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. HISTORY OF DISCOVERY AND RESEARCH HISTORY OF DISCOVERY AND RESEARCH Dinosaur remains have been found by humans for millennia the Eastern Seaboard. But matters really got moving when it was and probably helped form the basis for belief in mythical beasts realized that the forest-free tracts of the West offered hunting including dragons. A few dinosaur bones were illustrated in old grounds that were the best yet for the fossils of extinct titans. European publications without their true nature being realized. This quickly led to the “bone wars” of the 1870s and 1880s in In the West the claim in the Genesis creation story that the which Edward Cope and Charles Marsh, having taken a dislike planet and all life were formed just two thousand years before for one another that was as petty as it was intense, engaged in the pyramids were built hindered the scientific study of fossils.