A popular saying states that “history is written by the victors .” For centuries, those victors could only be men and any contribution or achievement obtained by women was usually buried or discredited by a simple matter of sex . Mary Anning, born on May 21, 1799 , is an excellent example of this sad reality since her name spent years without appearing in books or being part of the collective imagination despite the great discoveries she made in life. Oblivion prevented her deserved title of ‘mother of paleontology’ from being recognized.
Mary Anning was born in Lyme Regis , on the Dorset coast in southern England. This region is known as the ‘Jurassic Coast’ because of the large number of fossils that can be found there . Its impressive cliffs of soft clay and sandstones are worn away by the continuous pounding of the waves, exposing these remnants of bygone times. Mary’s father, a cabinetmaker by profession, had studied the world of fossils in depth and passed this passion on to his daughter, who accompanied him to the cliffs to collect them and then sell them at a stall in front of his house.
Tragedy came to Mary’s life when, during a stormy night, her father slipped and fell off a cliff . Although he did not die in the accident, his injuries greatly weakened him and he soon died of tuberculosis. Mary Anning, with only eleven years old, took responsibility for the family economy and made the collection of fossils her main income. The following year, she and her brother found the first remains of an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile from the Mesozoic era of the Lower Triassic . The discovery of the complete skeleton of this creature attracted the attention of accomplished geologists and was a first step towards accepting the notion, contrary to creationism, of species extinction . He was also one of the first people to recognize coprolites, the fossilized excrement of prehistoric creatures.
At the age of twenty-two he found the first plesiosaur skeleton , whose name means “close to the lizard”, and in 1828 the first pterodactyl remains found outside of Germany. Many of his discoveries were questioned or declared false, but it would end up proving that all of them were authentic. Despite her contributions, at that time women were not allowed to join Geological Societies and different geologists appropriated Mary Anning’s findings by publishing articles, giving lectures and taking all the credit without even mentioning the important role of the young paleontologist .
Rejected by the scientific community and bankrupt, she fell ill with breast cancer and died on March 9, 1847 at the age of 48 . Only shortly before her death, the Geological Society of London admitted her as an honorary member and began to recognize her contributions. In 2010, Mary Anning was declared one of the ten most influential women scientists in history by the British Society and today the fossils she discovered are on display in the Paleontological Gallery of the Natural History Museum in London and in its Parisian namesake. .
