If there is a key moment in the history of Paleontology, it is its very birth as a scientific discipline: the moment when we left behind mythological explanations to explain fossils and began their scientific study. And in these dawns of Paleontology there is a figure that shines with its own light: Georges Cuvier. Through his study of fossil vertebrates from the vicinity of Paris and the comparison of their anatomy with that of living animals, he laid the foundations for paleontology by speaking for the first time of the concept of extinction . Until then, living in a society highly influenced by the religious ideas of the Judeo-Christian tradition, no one had considered the possibility that the species of animals and plants in the fossil record did not correspond to species that do not exist today. Since it was believed at face value in the Creation, as narrated in the book of Genesis , these fossils were always attributed to living beings like the current ones or, at most, to mythological animals. In addition, thanks to his exhaustive studies of comparative anatomy, he proposed skeletal reconstructions of partial fossil skeletons. And for this reason, his great knowledge in anatomy, he was consulted again and again when some finding was resistant to some naturalist. That is why we have sometimes referred to him as “the paleontology influencer of the late 18th and early 19th centuries”.
Born in 1769, Georges Cuvier was a French naturalist of the Enlightenment period, at an unprecedented time for the sciences and humanities. He was a great student of nature, especially the anatomy of vertebrate animals. His main objective was to correlate the anatomical characteristics of these animals with the way they lived, that is, the way in which each animal performed the main vital functions . If our humerus is different from that of a dog, and both are different from that of a bird, it must be due to the use that each living being gives to its arm, and this is also related to its feeding or movement habits, for example. He was not without reason, although he was missing another reason for the differences and similarities: kinship. But it was still very early. And maybe that was asking too much.
Through his studies, he came to correlate anatomy and function within the great diversity of known animals, especially vertebrates. For example, he related diet to teething, teething with his digestive system and finally with the musculoskeletal system. This type of correlation was the basis of his comparative anatomy .
In addition, as we have already anticipated, he was the first person to speak of the concept of species extinction, and for this reason he is considered the father of Paleontology. However, he was a creationist , like any man of his time -we are all children of the moment in which we live, for better and for worse-, and therefore his ideas were “fixist”, he did not accept that animals change over time.
This immobile vision of nature and living beings did not prevent him from making great advances for the Paleontology of his time. Applying his studies of anatomical correlation to classify the fossils of the Paris Basin, he managed to identify them as belonging to families that live today, but he saw that they had differences enough to be species that no longer live among us , and that Therefore, they must have become extinct. Also, with his anatomical knowledge, he came to propose complete reconstructions of skeletons of extinct animals from a few bones.
According to his vision of the History of Life on Earth, animals did not change, but after catastrophic extinction events (he is also considered the father of catastrophism ), the Earth was repopulated by the animals that had survived, possibly by living in regions of the planet not affected by the catastrophe. And that is why in the different rock layers we saw times or eras in which different groups of animals abounded. This vision without gradual changes brought him into conflict with other great naturalists, such as the geologist Charles Lyell, who opposed catastrophism. Lyell advocated ” uniformitarianism ” for geological formations. He considered that the processes that occur today on the planet were the same as those that had occurred in the past, and that therefore, all the formations that we observe in the geological record must have formed -excuse the redundancy- in a slow and gradual way. , without the need to resort to great catastrophes or universal deluges.
However, being the most popular anatomist of the day meant that Cuvier was constantly consulted on new specimen finds (hence our recurring joke that he was the paleontological influencer of his day). He did not become the author of any dinosaur, but he contributed his grain of sand in the identification of its fossil remains , both of dinosaurs (such as giving Gideon Mantell a command to identify its Iguanodon teeth) and of marine reptiles (he was part of the discovery of mosasaurs).
Without a doubt, a true man of illustration and a true father of paleontology who, like every person, had his lights and shadows. But to Caesar what is Caesar’s. And to Cuvier, what is Cuvier’s.
References:
Outram, D. 1984. Georges Cuvier: Vocation, Science and Authority in Post-Revolutionary France. Palgrave Macmillan.
Taquet P. 2006. Georges Cuvier, Birth of a Genius. Ed. Odile Jacob.
Gascó, F. 2021. That was not in my dinosaur history book . Guadalmazán.
