First Finds
While Palaeontology as a science is relatively recent, fossils themselves have been the objects of mankind's fascination since, and probably before, history began.
Ancient Greeks and Romans left us great records of their fossil hunting and interpreting. The Roman commander Quintus Sertorius, in 81BC, reportedly found a skeleton 26m long in Morrocco. The historian Solinus tells of an occasion in the first century BC where receeding floodwaters revealed a skeleton 33 cubits (47 feet; 14 m) long in the collapsed river bank. Pliny the elder documented the discovery of a 69 foot long giant as revealed by an earthquake, and Philodemos of Gadara told of another skeleton of massive proportions in Crete.
It is not until the middle ages and dawn of the enlightenment that any real palaeontological advances were made, however. Leonardo Da Vinci commented on fossil mollusc shells, and speculated as to their taphonomy. 1565 saw the publication of Conrad Gesner's 'On Fossil Objects', which saw some of the earliest attempts to improve upon the work of classical scholars. Perhaps the most important advance in this book was that it was illustrated comprehensively with woodcuts of specimens. It was thought at the time that some fossils could be utilised in the making of medicines.
Gesner's fossils included Glossopterae (fossilised shark's teeth), molluscs, echinoderms, belemnites, crinoids, and even a well-preserved fossil fish of Permian age.
Robert Hooke observed similarities in the microstructure of charcoal and fossil wood in his book 'Micrographia' in 1665. He also speculated as to the taphonomy of the wood, proposing that the wood had been 'well soak'd in petrifying water'. Hooke also compared fossil ammonites to modern nautilus specimens. In 1666, just as the great fire ravaged old London, Nicolas Steno (born Niels Stensen) was dissecting a shark (see figure 1), and observed the similarity between its teeth and glossoptera or 'tongue stones'. John Ray, an esteemed naturalist, attempted to draw some conclusions as to where fossils came from in 1673. He weighed up Hooke's ideas of organic origin and the ideas put forward by Martin Lister. Organic origin seemed to him 'to be the most probable opinion', but two problems lay in the way of this interpretation. Firstly, in order for some of the bizarre fossils found to be organic, extinction of these odd-looking species must have taken place. Secondly, the occurrence of fossils on high hills, apparently inexplicable by invoking the involvement of Noah's flood (as often advocated by John Woodward). The ammonites particularly confused him, and he later proposed that ammonites could be inorganic while other fossils were most likely organic in origin.
The first real documented dinosaur find can be attributed to Robert Plot, who in 1676 found a section of the femur of a Megalosaurus. He did not know that this was its true origin though, and instead attributed the bone to an ancient giant. Later writings relating to Plot's find include the name 'Scrotum humanum' for the bone (figure 2), referring to its shape and as proposed by Robert Brookes.
Much of the naturalist science of the latter half of the 17th century involved attempts at demystifying the dynamics of Noah's flood, and how it could have resulted in the preservation of fossils. The first major step away from this viewpoint was laid out by Edward Lhwyd, of the Ashmolean museum. He proposed that fossil plants could have grown from seeds that somehow found their way into cracks in the rock, and that fossil animals might have grown similarly. While this sounds ridiculous to modern thinkers, this theory gained a fairly large degree of support in the Royal Society.
Georges Buffon, in 1749, finally began to speak out against the use of the bible as scientific fact. He criticises scathingly the work of Woodward and his contemporaries, arguing that a miraculous event for moral purposes should not be reconciled with incompatible scientific observations. He argued for the existence of seven 'epochs' of natural history, that could be analogous to the seven days of creation, based on the fossil record.
The end of the 18th century saw a significant change in scientist's interpretation of fossils, largely based on this new found realism. The great Georges Cuvier was soon to follow, and usher in a new era in palaeontological understanding.
See Also - Robert Plot
Nicolas Steno
References and Further Reading
Rudwick, M. J. 1972. “The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of Palaeontology.” Macdonald, London.
Hooke, R. 1665. Micrographia. Royal Society, London.
URLs
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/steno.html
http://www.strangescience.net/gesner.htm
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Buffon.html
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Figure 1. Steno's Shark Dissection
Figure 2. Scrotum humanum