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January 18, 2024
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Sometime between 1100 and 1700 CE, a Massospondylus A dinosaur bone was found and taken to a rock shelter in Lesotho, marking the oldest known human discovery of a dinosaur fossil.
Neotype specimen of Massospondylus carinatus.
Kimberley EJ Chapelle
The following essay is reprinted with the permission of 
The conversationan online publication covering the latest research.
Credit for the discovery of the first dinosaur bones usually falls to British gentlemen for their finds between the 17th and 19th centuries in England. Robert Plotan English scholar of natural history, was the first to describe a dinosaur bone, in his 1676 book The Natural History of Oxfordshire. For the next two centuries, dinosaur paleontology would be dominated by numerous British natural scientists.
But our studio shows that the history of paleontology goes back much further into the past. We present evidence that the first dinosaur bone may have been discovered in Africa as early as 500 years before Plot’s.
We are a team of scientists who study fossils in South Africa. By examining published and unpublished archaeological, historical, and paleontological literature, we discovered that there has been interest in fossils in Africa for as long as there have been people on the continent.
This is not a surprise. Humanity originated in Africa: A wise man has been around for at least 300,000 years. And the continent has a great diversity of rock outcrops, such as the Kem Kem Beds in Morocco, the Fayum Depression in Egypt, the Rift Valley in east africa and the Karoo in southern Africa, which contains fossils that have always been accessible to our ancestors.
So it was not likely that Africans discovered the fossils first. It was inevitable.
Most often, local guides drew their attention to the first dinosaur fossils supposedly discovered by scientists. An example is the discovery of giant dinosaurs. Jobaria by the Tuaregs in Niger and Girafatitan by the Mwera in Tanzania.
Our article reviews what is known about indigenous African knowledge about fossils. We list fossils that appear to have been known for a long time from various African sites and discuss how they might have been used and interpreted by African communities before the science of paleontology emerged.
Bolahla rock shelter in Lesotho
One of the highlights of our article is the archaeological site of Bolahla, a Later Stone Age rock shelter in Lesotho. Various dating techniques indicate that the site was occupied by the Khoesan and Basotho between the 12th and 18th centuries (1100 to 1700 AD). The refuge itself is surrounded by hills made up of consolidated sediments that were deposited beneath a harsh Sahara-like desert between 180 and 200 million years ago, when the first dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
This part of Lesotho is particularly known for delivering the species. Massospondylus carinatus, a dinosaur measuring 4 to 6 meters, with a long neck and small head. Fossilized bones of Massospondylus They are abundant in the area and were already so when the place was occupied by humans in the Middle Ages.
In 1990, archaeologists working in Bolahla he discovered that a bone from a finger Massospondylus, a fossil phalanx, had been transported to the cave. There are no fossil skeletons protruding from the cave walls, so the only chance this phalanx ended up there was if someone in the distant past picked it up and brought it to the cave. Perhaps this person made it out of simple curiosity, or to make it into a pendant or toy, or to use in traditional healing rituals.
After heavy rains, it is not uncommon for local residents to discover bones of extinct species that have been washed away by their bedrock. They usually identify them as belonging to a dragon-like monster that devours people or even entire houses. In Lesotho, the Basotho call the monster “Kholumolumo”, while in the Eastern Cape border province with South Africa, the Xhosa refer to it as “The Dragons.”
Unfortunately, the exact date on which the phalanx was collected and transported has been lost to time. According to current knowledge, it could have been at any time of occupation of the refuge between the 12th and 18th centuries. This leaves open the possibility that this dinosaur bone could have been collected up to 500 years before Robert Plot’s discovery.
Early knowledge of extinct creatures.
Most people knew about fossils long before the scientific era, as far back as collective social memory can go. In Algeria, for example, people referred to some dinosaur footprints as belonging to the legendary “roc bird”. In North America, cave paintings depicting dinosaur footprints were painted by the Anasazi people between 1000 and 1200 AD. C.. Indigenous Australians identified dinosaur footprints as belonging to a legendary “emu-man”. To the south, the famous conquistador Hernán Cortés received the fossil femur of a mastodon from the hands of the aztecs in 1519. In Asia, Hindus refer to ammonites (coiled fossil seashells) as “Shaligrams”and have been worshiping them for over 2,000 years.
Claim credit
The fact that people in Africa have long known about the existence of fossils is evident from folklore and the archaeological record, but we still have a lot to learn about it. For example, unlike the peoples of Europe, America, and Asia, indigenous African paleontologists appear to have rarely used fossils for traditional medicine. We are still not sure if this is a genuinely unique cultural trait shared by most African cultures or if it is because our knowledge is certainly still incomplete.
In addition, some quite outstanding fossil sites, such as the Moroccan sites of Kem Kem and the South African Unesco sites. Cradle of Humanity caves, have not yet provided solid evidence of indigenous knowledge. This is unfortunate, as fossil-related traditions could help bridge the gap between local communities and paleontologists, which in turn could contribute conservation important heritage sites.
By exploring indigenous paleontology in Africa, our team is piecing together pieces of a forgotten past that gives credit back to local communities. We hope it inspires a new generation of local paleoscientists to follow in the footsteps of these early African fossil hunters.
This article was originally published in The conversation. Read the Original article.
