Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
| Online Publication Date: 05 Nov 2007
The Pre-Modern History of the Post-Modern Dinosaur: Phases and Causes in Post-Darwinian Dinosaur Art
The Pre-Modern History of the Post-Modern Dinosaur: Phases and Causes in Post-Darwinian Dinosaur Art
Page Range: 5 – 35
Our images of dinosaurs have changed greatly and repeatedly since the group was first recognized in 1842. Although these changes have frequently been noted, their causes have not been adequately investigated. The history of dinosaur iconography since the publication of the Origin of Species can be usefully divided into at least four phases. During each of these phases, images of dinosaurs have been affected as much by what scientists thought dinosaurs should look like according to their particular views of the evolutionary process, as by empirical information derived from analysis of fossils. In the late nineteenth century, when paleontological views of evolution were diverse, views of dinosaurs were highly pluralistic, with some seen as slow and ponderous and others seen as agile and active. In the early twentieth century, as paleontological opinions about evolution narrowed around progressive orthogenesis, the spectrum of images narrowed to a view of almost all dinosaurs as primitive, slow, and stupid. The advent of the modern synthetic view of evolution in the 1940s had little effect on dinosaur science, and it was not until the late 1960s that dinosaurs would be viewed as advanced in many respects, harkening back to ideas first put forward just after Darwin.
Allmon, W. D., and R. M. Ross, An art exhibit on dinosaurs and the nature of science. Journal of Geoscience Education, 2000, 48: 296-299,357-358.
Ashworth, W. A., Jr., Paper Dinosaurs, 1824-1969. Exhibition Catalog (Kansas City, MO, Linda Hall Library, 1996).
Bakker, R. T., The dinosaur heresies (New York, William Morrow and Company, 1986).
Ballou, W. H., Strange creatures of the past, Century Magazine, 1897, 55(1):15-23.
Beasley, W. L., A carnivorous dinosaur: reconstructed skeleton of a huge saurian. Scientific American, 1907, 97: 446-447.
Bowler, P. J., Fossils and progress (New York, Science History Publications, 1976).
Bowler, P. J., The eclipse of Darwinism. Anti-Darwinian evolution theories in the decades around 1900 (Baltimore, MD, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).
Bowler, P. J., Evolution. The history of an idea. 3rd edition (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2003).
Brilliant, K., Modeling Digital Dinosaurs (Hingham, MA, Charles River Media, 2002).
Burnie, D., The Kingfisher illustrated dinosaur encyclopedia (New York, Kingfisher Publications, 2001).
Cain, D., and M. Fredericks, Dinosaur collectibles (Norfolk, VA, Antique Trader Books, 1999).
Colbert, E. H., The dinosaur book (New York, American Museum of Natural History, 1945).
Colbert, E. H., Dinosaurs. Their discovery and their world (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1961).
Colbert, E. H., The age of reptiles (New York, W.W. Norton, 1965).
Colbert, E. H., Men and dinosaurs. The search in field and laboratory (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1968).
Colbert, E. H., A fossil-hunter's notebook (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1980).
Colbert, E. H., Dinosaurs. An illustrated history (Maplewood, NJ, Hammond, 1983).
Colbert, E. H., Digging into the past. An autobiography (New York, Dembner Books, 1989).
Colbert, E. H., The protean dinosaurs, in Dinofest International, Proceedings of a symposium held at Arizona State University, eds. D. L. Wolberg, E. Stump, G. D. Rosenberg (Philadelphia, Academy of Natural Sciences, 1997), 1-5.
Cope, E. D., Remarks on the remains of a gigantic extinct dinosaur from the Cretaceous Greensand of New Jersey. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1866, 18: 275-279.
Cope, E. D., The fossil reptiles of New Jersey. American Naturalist, 1867, 1: 23-30.
Cope, E. D., Remarks on extinct reptiles which approach birds. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1868, 19: 234-5.
Cope, E. D., On the genus Laelaps. American Journal of Science, 2nd series, 1869, 45: 415-417.
Cope, E. D., Synopsis of the extinct Batrachia and Reptilia of North America, Part I. Transactions of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1869, 14: 1-252.
Cope, E. D., The fossil reptiles of New Jersey. American Naturalist, 1869, 3(2): 84-91 [continuation of Cope, 1867]
Cope, E. D., The origin of the fittest (New York, Appleton, 1886).
Cope, E. D., Primary factors of organic evolution (New York, Open Court Publishing Co., 1896).
Crumly, C., ed., Dinosaur imagery. The science of lost worlds and Jurassic art (San Diego, CA, Academic Press, 2000).
Currie, P. J., E. B. Koppelhus, M. A. Shugar, J. L. Wright, Feathered dragons: Studies on the transition from dinosaurs to birds (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2004).
Czerkas, S. M., and D. F. Glut, Dinosaurs mammoths, and cavemen. The art of Charles R. Knight (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1982).
Czerkas, S. J., and E. C. Olson, Dinosaurs past and present, 2 vols. (Los Angeles and Seattle, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and University of Washington Press, 1987).
Davidson, J. P., The bone sharp. The life of Edward Drinker Cope (Philadelphia, The Academy of Natural Sciences, 1997).
Dean, D. R., Gideon Mantell and the discovery of dinosaurs (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Debus, A. A., and D. E. Debus, Paleoimagery. The evolution of dinosaurs in art (Jefferson, NC, McFarland and Co., 2002).
Desmond, A., The hot-blooded dinosaurs. A revolution in palaeontology (New York, Dial Press, 1975).
Desmond, A., Designing the dinosaur: Richard Owen's response to Robert Edmond Grant. Isis, 1979, 70: 224-234.
Desmond, A., Archetypes and ancestors. Palaeontology in Victorian London 1850-1875 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982).
Desmond, A., Huxley. From devil's disciple to evolution's high priest (Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley, 1997).
Dingus, L., and T. Rowe, The mistaken extinction. Dinosaur evolution and the origin of birds (New York, W.H. Freeman, 1998).
Dodson, P., The horned dinosaurs (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1996).
Doyle, P., and E. Robinson, The Victorian "geological illustrations" of Crystal Palace Park, Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, 1993, 104: 181-194.
Ehlinger, C., and N. Ross, eds., 1998, Designing dinosaurs. Solving prehistoric puzzles. Exhibit catalog: Greenwich, CT, Bruce Museum of Art and Science.
Eldredge, N., Reinventing Darwinism. The great debate at the high table of evolutionary theory (New York, John Wiley, 1995).
Feduccia, A., The origin and evolution of birds, 2nd edition. (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1999).
Gee, H., and L. Rey, A field guide to dinosaurs. The essential handbook for travelers in the Mesozoic (London, Quarto Publishing, 2003).
Glut, D. F., The dinosaur scrapbook (Seacaucus, NJ, Citadel Press, 1980).
Glut, D. F., Dinosaurs. The encyclopedia (Jefferson, NC, McFarland & Co., 1997).
Gould, S. J., Irrelevance, submission and partnership: the changing role of paleontology in Darwin's three centennials and a modest proposal for macroevolution, in Evolution from molecules to men, ed., D. S. Bendall (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983), 347-366.
Gould, S. J., Reconstructing (and deconstructing) the past, in The book of life, general ed. S.J. Gould (New York, W.W.Norton, 1993), 6-21.
Gould, S. J., The structure of evolutionary theory (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2002).
Gregory, W. K., The weight of the Brontosaurus. Science, 1905, 22: 572.
Gregory, W. K., Evolution emerging, 2 volumes. (New York, MacMillan, 1951).
Haines, T., Walking with dinosaurs (London, BBC, 1999; American edition, New York, Dorling Kindersley, 2000).
Heilmann, G., The origin of birds (London, Witherby, 1926).
Henderson, W., and S. Benjamin, Sinclair collectibles (Atglen, PA, Schiffer Publishing Co., 1997).
Huxley, T. H., On the animals which are most nearly intermediate between reptiles and birds. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 1868, 4(2): 66-75.
Huxley, T. H., Remarks upon Archaeopteryx Lithographica. Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1868, 16: 243-248.
Huxley, T. H., Further evidence of the affinity between the dinosaurian reptiles and birds. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 1869, 26: 12-31.
Jepsen, G., G. G. Simpson, and E. Mayr, eds, Genetics, paleontology, and evolution (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1949).
Knight, C. R., Diplodocus restored. The largest creature that ever roamed the earth, Scientific American, 1907, 96(24): 485.
Knight, C. R., Before the dawn of history (New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1935).
Knight, C. R., Life through the ages (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2001, Commemorative edition of the 1946 original).
Knight, C. R., Autobiography of an artist (Ann Arbor, MI, G.T. Labs, 2005).
Leidy, J., Remarks concerning Hadrosaurus. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1858, 14: 215-18.
Leidy, J., Hadrosaurus foulkii, a new saurian from the Cretaceous of New Jersey related to Iguanodon. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1859, 10: 213-18.
Lingham-Soliar, T., Introduction to: Art in Science. Illustrating the world of Beverly Halstead, Modern Geology, 1992, 8: 141-155.
Lucas, S., Dinosaurs. The textbook, 3rd edition (Boston, McGraw-Hill, 2000).
Lull, R. S., The ways of life (New York, Harper and Bros., 1925).
Lull, R. S., Organic evolution (New York, MacMillan, 1917). (Revised edition, 1947).
Lull, R. S., and N. E. Wright, Hadrosaurian dinosaurs of North America, Geological Society of America Special Paper No. 40, 1942, 1-242.
Marsh, O. C., Introduction and succession of vertebrate life in America, American Journal of Science, 3rd series, 1877, 14: 337-378.
Marsh, O. C., Notice of a new and gigantic dinosaur, American Journal of Science, 1877, 19: 88
Marsh, O. C., Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Pt. I, American Journal of Science, 1878, 16: 411-416.
Marsh, O. C., Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Pt. V, American Journal of Science, 1881, 21: 417-423.
Marsh, O. C., Classification of the Dinosauria, American Journal of Science, 1882, 23: 81-86.
Marsh, O. C., Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Part VI. Restoration of Brontosaurus, American Journal of Science, 3rd series, 1883, 26: 81-85.
Marsh, O. C., Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Part VII. On the Diplodocidae, a new family of the Sauropoda, American Journal of Science, 3rd series, 1884, 27: 161-167.
Marsh, O. C., Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Part VIII. The order Theropoda, American Journal of Science, 3rd series, 1884, 27: 329-340.
Marsh, O. C., Restoration of some European dinosaurs, with suggestions as to their place among the Reptilia. American Journal of Science, 3rd series, 1895. 50: 407-412.
Marsh, O. C., On the affinities and classification of the dinosaurian reptiles. American Journal of Science, 3rd series, 1895, 50: 483-498.
Marsh, O. C., The dinosaurs of North America, U.S. Geological Survey Annual Report for 1894-95. Part 1, 1896, 133-244.
Matthew, W. D., Allosaurus, a carnivorous dinosaur and its prey, American Museum Journal, 1908, 8: 5.
Matthew, W. D., Dinosaurs (New York, American Museum of Natural History, Handbook Series, no. 5, 1915).
McCarthy, S., and M. Gilbert, The Crystal Palace dinosaurs. The story of the world's first prehistoric sculptures (London, The Crystal Palace Foundation, 1994).
Mitchell, W. J. T., The last dinosaur book (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998).
Norman, D. B., On the ornithischian dinosaur Iguanodon bernissartensis of Bernissart, Belgium. Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Mémoires, 1980, no. 178.
Olson, E. C., Morphology, paleontology, and evolution, in The evolution of life, ed., S. Tax (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1960), 523-546.
Osborn, H. F., A great naturalist. Edward D. Cope, Century Magazine, 1897, 55(1):10-15.
Osborn, H. F., Models of extinct vertebrates. Science, 1898, 7(182): 841-845.
Osborn, H. F., A skeleton of Diplodocus. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, 1899, 1: 191-214.
Osborn, H. F., The origin and evolution of life (New York, Scribners, 1917).
Osborn, H. F., Cope: master naturalist (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1931).
Osborn, H. F., and C. C. Mook, Camarasaurus, Amphicoelias, and other sauropods of Cope. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, 1919, 3: 247-387.
Ostrom, J. H., Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus, an unusual theropod from the Lower Cretaceous of Montana. Bull. Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, 1969, 30: 1-165.
Ostrom, J. H., L. J. Hickey, and T. Delevoryas, A guide to the age of reptiles (New Haven, CT, Peabody Museum of Natural History, 1987).
Owen, R., Monograph of the fossil Reptilia of the Mesozoic formations (London, Paleontographical Society, 1874-1889).
Parsons, K. M., Drawing out leviathan. Dinosaurs and the science wars (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2001).
Paul, G. S. The art of Charles R. Knight, in The Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs, ed. G.S. Paul (New York, St. Martin's Press, 2000), 113-118.
Paul, G. S. A quick history of dinosaur art, in The Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs, ed. G.S. Paul (New York, St. Martins Press), 107-112.
Phillips, J., Geology of Oxford and the Valley of the Thames (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1871).
Rainger, R., An agenda for antiquity. Henry Fairfield Osborn and vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, 1890-1935 (Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press, 1991).
Rey, L., Extreme dinosaurs (San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 2001).
Rudwick, M. J. S., Scenes from deep time. Early pictorial representations of the prehistoric world (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992).
Rupke, N. A., Richard Owen. Victorian naturalist (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1994).
Russell, L. S., Body temperature of dinosaurs and its relationships to their extinction, Journal of Paleontology, 1967, 39:497-500.
Sanz, J. L., Starring T. rex! Dinosaur mythology and popular culture (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2002).
Sarjeant, W. A. S., Crystal Palace, in Encyclopedia of dinosaurs, eds P. J. Currie and K. Padian (San Diego, Academic Press, 1997), 161-164.
Schuchert, C., and C. M. LeVene, O.C. Marsh. Pioneer in paleontology (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1940).
Scotchmoor, J., B. Breithaupt, D. Springer, and A. Fiorillo, eds, Dinosaurs. The science behind the stories (Alexandria, VA, American Geological Institute, 2002).
Scully, V., R. Zallinger, L. J. Hickey, and J. Ostrom, The Age of Reptiles: the great dinosaur mural at Yale (New York, Abrams, 1990).
Simpson, G.G., The major features of evolution (New York, Columbia University Press, 1953).
Simpson, G.G., The history of life, in The evolution of life, ed., S. Tax (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1960), 117-180.
Spence, H., ed., A great name in oil: Sinclair through fifty years (New York, FW Dodge, 1966).
Stanley, S. M., Macroevolution. Pattern and process (San Francisco, W.H. Freeman, 1979).
Swinton, W. E., The dinosaurs: a short history of a great group of extinct reptiles (London, Thomas Murby, 1934).
Swinton, W. E., Dinosaurs (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1970).
Tanner, R., Terrible lizard! The dinosaur as plaything. Journal of American Culture, 2000, 23: 53-64.
Torrens, H. S., Politics and paleontology: Richard Owen and the invention of dinosaurs, in The Complete Dinosaur, eds J. O. Farlow and M. K. Brett-Surman (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1997), 175-190.
Wallace, D. R., The bonehunters revenge. Dinosaurs, greed, and the greatest scientific feud of the gilded age (Boston, Houghton-Mifflin, 1999).
Weishampel, D. B., and L. Young, Dinosaurs of the East Coast (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
White, T. D., Dinosaurs at home (New York, Vantage Press, 1967).
Wilford, J. N., The riddle of the dinosaur (New York, Knopf, 1986).