Palaeontology vs Archaeology

To most palaeontologists and archaeologists, the general public often ask if we study what the other group of scientists does. For example, I can say I study dinosaurs and people will ask if I am an archaeologist (when not saying like Ross from Friends...), but I know archaeologists have the same questions about dinosaurs. So this isn't an annoyed public service announcement, it is actually an interesting point and something that is worth discussing.

So what does Google image search turn up if we look for archaeologist and palaeontologist (I'm sticking to British spellings)?

Google image search 04/11/2018 archaeologist. Spot Indiana Jones in the bottom row twice.

Google image search 04/11/2018 palaeontologist.

Generally lots of people working with bones, and of course some Indiana Jones who I discuss a bit more later. Why do these searches produce results that on the face of it look so similar if I am indeed claiming a difference? Let's do a quick etymology (their derivation, in this case from Greek) of the words palaeontology and archaeology:

Palaeontology: old life studies, i.e. the study of old life (palaios - old, on - life, logos - study)

Archaeology: ancient study, i.e. the study of old things (arkhaios - ancient, logos - as above)

As you can see from their definitions, they could easily be one and the same. And archaeology can and does involve palaeontology. It all stems from the first people who worked on studying ancient life, being antiquarians (particularly those of Europe) who in the late 1800s begin to scientifically study the ancient world. Before this, the "study" was based around collecting various artifacts/artefacts (depending on your national preference for the spelling) and oddities in a non-scientific fashion. From these early antiquarians the studies would eventually spawn into what we know today, where palaeontology tends to focus on ancient life outside of humans, and archaeology focuses on the study of human culture. They overlap in two main areas, 1) the study of early human remains through palaeoanthropology, and 2) in the remains of animals found on human sites.

Lucy the Australopithecus from 3.2 million years ago.
By 120 - own picture worked with photoshop, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1818607

I suspect other palaeontologists/archaeologists will disagree on exactly where these boundaries are, and I would say that palaeontologists (at least to the general public) wouldn't study material that hasn't undergone at least some remineralisation (the process that transforms biological material into the rocks that we call fossils) but this can include some quite old material that are still "sub-fossils". These would include things like dodo skeletons, poo from extinct giant sloths etc. but would also likely include material mostly from the last million or so years. The lovely zone of overlap between palaeontology and biology/zoology/archaeology showing themselves here as I've rewritten this section lots of times.

Ground sloth poo, from Scott Person's twitter. Archaeological, palaeontological, zoological, all?

But what does it matter? In reality it doesn't really, we are all scientists who often study things that have been dug up from the ground. In the early days, these people may well have done the same (and in truth some still do). A great example is Roy Chapman Andrews, who was a researcher from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In the 1920s he launched a series of expeditions to China and Mongolia hoping to find the origin of humans in a time before the "Cradle of Humanity" in eastern and southern Africa had been discovered. He wouldn't find the first humans, but his expeditions and crews would go on to find the first dinosaur eggs in nests, famous dinosaurs, and mammals. As such he became a famous palaeontologist, with his name being used in the naming of Protoceratops andrewsi. Interestingly, his stories/books about his adventures and explorations may well have been at least partial inspiration for Indiana Jones who today may be the most famous "archaeologist" to most members of the public.

Google image search of Roy Chapman Andrews. Horseback and camel riding, hat wearing, gun toting, dinosaur finding, all around explorer extraordinaire. It's not hard to see how people have drawn the link between him and Indiana Jones, although the Smithsonian Channel apparently said any link is incidental.

The separation has come from the increasing detail and knowledge gained since the 1800s where someone could know everything about the entire field. Nowadays everyone has become increasingly specialised causing this subdivisions. But we can and do often learn a lot from each other, and the techniques we use are the same. An interesting example is in digging where very little has changed since those early days. Both archaeologists and palaeontologists today upon finding a site will carefully and painstakingly map and excavate the material, sometimes with tools as basic as dental picks and brushes. Archaeologists may take it a step further with just how rigorous they are with regards to recording sites, with often only a few centimetres being exposed and the site being remapped, and then continuing.

Archaeologists also seem to get a lot tougher deal with regards to a lot of excavation. I say this using an example, a dinosaur is relatively easy to remove from a site. You dig around your dinosaur, wrap it in a burlap plaster jacket, flip, jacket, and then remove. In fact, with the exception of giant trackways, I cannot think of palaeontological material that you cannot remove from a site provided you have permission and the site is not too remote. At many archaeological sites you can remove the small material, but the finds may include far bigger things that you cannot dig out - buildings/foundations/walls/postholes for example. These foundations tend to be exposed, mapped, and in many cases reburied, or built over. In a lot of cities, large building works have associated rescue archaeologists on site to map, record, and save what can be, but ultimately a lot of old buildings will be either re-buried or destroyed during the construction. A great example in the UK is the Crossrail expansion to the railway network in London and nearby regions who have been doing a lot of rescue work and have an interactive website. Some sites are protected, and some have human remains so have a very different level of archaeological work going into them but ultimately it's a balance between the science and the development in many instances.

So the cliff notes version of the above: Archaeologists - humans, palaeontologists - other old life. Overlap with regards to digging up of things, early humans and other organisms found with early humans. Does it matter? Not hugely in reality, but ask an archaeologist about the dinosaurs they dig up, or a palaeontologist about that time you saw the pyramids and want to know more, be prepared for some disappointed scientists who probably roll their eyes and rattle off the answer anyway as they've been asked so many times before.

Jurassic World 2 - Fallen standards

I, like many people, love Jurassic Park (the original one). I must say I did not see it in the cinema when it released 25 years ago, mainly due to being quite young at the time (and would have been scared senseless of the dinosaurs, and maybe never have become a palaeontologist). In fact the first one I remember seeing in cinema was Jurassic Park 3. This weekend I saw the most recent one, Jurassic World 2.

I remember being enthralled by the dinosaurs and loving seeing my favourite animals alive on the big screen. Walking With Dinosaurs had much the same effect. How can you not love it? And the sound effects/music! The original still looks great, but sadly the love for the franchise and the recent film is not there. Don't get me wrong, I still like seeing the dinosaurs on the big screen, and there is a sort of nostalgia about it. It does show the science of palaeontology from 25 years ago with the dynamic scaly monsters rampaging around reclaiming the Earth (or at least a few islands off the coast of Costa Rica) from humans. But where to begin? Spoilers ahead (although mostly science/dino rather than major plot related, but don't say you weren't warned).

Feathered dinosaurs
We know now most later theropods had feathers (and some of the other lines too), and things like Velociraptor were mostly feathered. If you want to blow someone's mind who has never heard about feathered dinosaurs, google Microraptor. It is a close relative of Velociraptor and displays truly amazing feather preservation across its body, arms, legs and tail. I won't belabour any of the points here, it has been discussed in depth by many others before me. Jurassic Park 3 even gave a very gentle acknowledgement of feathers on the raptors by giving them some sort of filaments on the top of their heads. These reappear in the new "Indo raptor" but are more porcupine quills than feather as most know them.

The hands
Also a common gripe for palaeontologists is the "bunny" hands of T. rex. The sort of thing you can imagine them doing the air quotes at people.

T. rex in Kings Cross, London as promotional material for Jurassic World showing off the wrong hand positions.

The reason we imagine this and see it reconstructed is that mammals are able to do it easily, this pronation of our hands (as opposed to supination - like you do holding a bowl of soup).

Velociraptor in Kings Cross, London as promotional material for Jurassic World showing off the correct hand positions.

Dinosaurs generally don't have this ability to pronate their hands, and there remains debate even about some of the large ones walking on all fours exactly what extent they could rotate their hands, which is some of the the research we are doing with computers.
The walking/running
Debate still rages and hits many news headlines over T. rex walking and running. I won't get into it, but chances are they could still manage a good speed (at least compared to human sprinters) no matter what they did. However, one think I can almost certainly guarantee, even if you created a new dinosaur hybrid from a T. rex and Velociraptor, it would definitely not walk around on 4 legs for periods of time. Another thing that is almost certainly not possible will be galloping ankylosaurs (those big armoured dinosaurs).

Lava
I may be a palaeontologist by trade, but I have spent some time with geologists and learnt some things about volcanoes. Lava is hot. There, I admit I know something about geology that doesn't usually involve fossils. In fact lava is usually above 700C, and the lava in Hawaii in the eruptions at the minute is about 1100-1200C according to the USGS. What that means is it causes things to burn, and because it is so hot it doesn't even have to touch them to burn. Like Chris Pratt when he is inches from a lava flow. Worse yet is the scene where lava lands on a Baryonyx head and it roars, shakes it off and continues hunting people.

Pyroclastic flows
This stuff is searingly hot, and moves quickly. Pyroclastic flows are one of the main causes of death in volcanic eruptions. Lava is usually slow and can be outrun but pyroclastic flows are superheated, volcanic ash clouds that rolls down the slopes at hundreds of miles an hour incinerating everything in its path. Famous examples from history include ones at Mt. Saint Helens, Monteserrat, Vesuvius (the things that did in Pompeii), and tragically just over a week ago in Guatemala where hundreds of people have lost their lives. You don't run in/through one of these. You definitely don't somehow catch and carry off a T. rex within 1 minute of it arriving.

Brachiosaurus rearing
God, it was possibly the most cinematic/heart wrenching scene in the film as one gets overrun by a pyroclastic flow with the audience all flashing back to one of the most incredible scenes where we first meet the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park 1. There is a lot of evidence suggesting that no, they cannot rear, or at least not for long periods of time (I will not open the can of worms that is dinosaur reproduction).

The story
Jurassic Park 1 - Park opens for some guests, someone messes up the systems, dinosaurs get out, havoc ensues.
Jurassic World 1 - Park opens for guests, someone messes up, dinosaur gets out, havoc ensues.

Jurassic Park 2 - Go to the island for research reasons, bad guys get involved and catch all the dinosaurs to take them to mainland for money, dinosaurs get out and cause rampage. Shout-out to the pachycephalosaur involved in breaking out dinosaurs.
Jurassic World 2 - Go to island to save dinosaurs from volcano, bad guys get involved to catch all the dinosaurs, take them to mainland, auction, dinosaurs get out and rampage.  Shout-out to the pachycephalosaur involved in breaking out dinosaurs.

Jurassic Park 3 - Crazy parasailing/gliding accident, plane crash, Spinosaurus rampage.
Jurassic World 3 - PLEASE NO!

Things I liked
Actually first half was decent for the dinosaurs once you get past the above criticisms.
Rex biting the neck of another meat eating dinosaur actually does damage - Jurassic Park 3 take note.

Final notes
Would I go see it again? Nope.

Would I encourage palaeontologists to see it, probably, but not to pay for the privilege.

If you like CGI dinos running around, causing PG-13 levels of violence with minimal blood and a thin rehashed story, it is mindless fun, but a lot darker than the previous ones.

4.5/10. Worst yet.

What's in a name?

Twitter has recently had many scientists highlighting the first species they have named (#Myfirstspecies). I am yet to get such a privilege, although got awfully close with finding a new fish species for India.

Whilst we all know a lot of species by their common names, in science we have been using a two part (binomial) naming system officially since Carl Linnaeus in 1753. These include things like Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex), Felis catus (domestic cat), or Gorilla gorilla (Western gorilla). On a computer they are italicised and the first name (genus) is capitalised whilst the second (species) name is always lower case. If hand-written we underline both names beacuse italicising is tricky in handwriting. Sometimes a subspecies name also exists e.g. Gorilla gorilla gorilla (Western lowland gorilla) as opposed to Gorilla gorilla diehli (Cross River gorilla).

So why do we have this system for naming? It was a way to standardise all naming as previously we may have had many common names for different species. My favourite crazy example concerns the largest deer species from North America and Europe. What is an elk, and moose? In Europe (at least to Brits), an elk is what North Americans would call a moose (Alces alces), whilst an elk/wapati (Cervus canadensis) to North Americans is a smaller species of deer resembling a European red deer (Cervus elaphus).

Cervus canadensis. By MONGO - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12228810/

Alces alces. By USDA Forest Service - http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/image/viz_nat4.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10561389

Cervus elephas. By Lviatour - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16566391

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So we in science have done away with common names for our sanity and stick to binomial names in publications. Usually the binomial names indicate something about the animal, e.g. C. canadensis from Canada (well N. America, but you get the idea), the discoverer/person who contributed to the field e.g. Lambeosaurus (after Lawrence Lambe who did a lot of work in Canada and on the genus before its naming), or something interesting/distinct about the animal e.g. Dilophosaurus (two-crested lizard - after the two ridges running down its skull) and Maiasaura (good mother lizard - as hatchlings were found in nesting colonies), but the naming can be as wild or weird as the naming people want as long as it follows certain rules (e.g. the name isn't already in use, you've correctly joined all the bits of the name depending on the language used - this is why its the feminine Latin Maiasaura rather than Maiasaurus, you can't name it after yourself etc. etc.).

I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but below are some names that have stuck with me for all sorts of reasons:

1. Scrotum humanum - Plot, 1677. Technically this is no longer a valid binomial name as it fell out of common usage before 1900 (the cutoff for a lot of old names), but this was actually the first binomial name given to a dinosaur (and before Linnaeus got around to standardising binomial naming). Now known as Megalosaurus bucklandii. The naming is perhaps not surprising when you see the figure below, but it is actually the broken bottom end of a femur. I'm kind of hoping someone revives this name.

Figure from The Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677). Taken from http://www.dinohunters.com/Hunters/Plot.htm 

2. Nqwebasaurus thwazi - de Klerk et al., 2000. This dinosaur name is a proper mouthful, but not how it looks. The Nq is actually a "click" sound from the southern African Xhosa tribe. I sadly have never heard anyone pronounce it correctly at a conference and most talk about it in the anglicised version where it is said as it spelt.

3. Tianchisaurus nedegoapeferima - Dong, 1993. The genus name here isn't the reason for loving the name, it is the species name. The jumbled nedegoapeferima are the first two letters of the original cast of Jurassic Park's surnames (except Attenborough who only got the A): Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello. Added factoid is that the genus name was originally Jurassosaurus by Spielberg himself who funded the Chinese dig, but that name did not stick. Whilst not unique in being a species named after a celebrity, it may be the one named after the most!

4. Mei long -Xu & Norell, 2004.  Whilst originally most species were named using Latin, as you can see from the above examples this is no longer the case with other languages such as Chinese becoming commonly used. Mei is a favourite just because the binomial name means "sleeping dragon" and was named because the dinosaur was found with its head behind an arm like modern birds.

Mei long. Figure from Xu & Norell, 2004.

5. Protoceratops andrewsi - Granger & Gregory, 1923. This is the answer I give to the question "which is my favourite dinosaur?" after T. rex. The reason? My name appears in it. Well actually the famous Roy Chapman Andrews name appears in it, but I'm taking it for now. Roy Chapman Andrews was a very interesting person. Thinking that humans originated in east Asia, he led expeditions to Mongolia where he would go on to discover an enormous wealth of dinosaurs, and the first dinosaur eggs. His expeditions may also have provided the inspiration for Indiana Jones.

I went and picked some other people's heads to so you didn't just get a list of funny dinosaurs names (although there are still a lot on here).

1. Zanabazar junior - Barsbold, 1974 (Genus was Norell et al., 2009). Alessandro Chiarenza's choice because of the great sounding name, which actually derives its name from the first Tibetan Buddhist figurehead Zanabazar.

2. Irritator challengeri - Martill et al., 1996. Ryan Felice's choice due to the name being an apt description of the difficulties of fieldwork. The name comes from the specimen being illegally collected and "enhanced" with plaster with Irritator specifically "from irritation, the feeling the authors felt (understated here) when discovering that the snout had been artificially elongated."

3. Babyrousa babyrussa - Linnaeus, 1758. Amber Collings' choice as the common name is the Buru babirusa (Buru being the island it is native to and babirusa being the name for the pig-like animals). Just for the mess of a brain tease it is, none of the names are the same, so best of luck remembering it all!

4. Vampyroteuthis infernalis - Chun, 1903. Mary Offutt's choice as the name literally means the vampire squid from hell. What's not to like?

5. Ninjemys oweni - Woodward 1881 (Genus was Gaffney, 1992). One of Thomas Haliday's choices for the reason for the Ninjemys genus name was created by Gaffney: "Ninja, in allusion to that totally rad, fearsome foursome epitomizing shelled success; emys, turtle". I think we all accept that we are nerds...

6. Yi qi - Xu et al., 2015. Another of Thomas' choices.This is a crazy dinosaur with bat like wings and also holds what may well be the shortest binomial name.

7. Dicraeosaurus sattleri - Janensch, 1914. Franzi Sattler's choice. Apparently it is "the best sauropod." I don't think I need to elaborate on why as it is less tenuous than the P. andrewsi I went for...

8. Turdus migratorius - Linnaeus, 1766. Catherine Early's undergraduate course choice. Mainly for the genus name giving her, and most people, a good chuckle. Poor American robin.

There are countless more that probably deserve to be elaborated on that have been discussed. Feel free to check out these: the fungus Spongiforma squarepantsii, the moth Neopalpa donaldtrumpi, the horse fly Scaptia beyonceae, the 19 (as of 2017) species named after Sir David Attenborough, the hundreds named after Alexander von Humboldt (if you don't know much about him, I thoroughly recommend reading "The Invention of Nature" by Andrea Wulf), or the countless other species with names that actually are informative about the animal or where it was found.

Hopefully binomial naming makes as much sense as it is going to. If you want to get a proper brain melt, oology (study of eggs), or at least for the fossils, has a similar binomial system that does not link to the species that laid them (if that is even known), as does ichnology (trace fossils). In fact ichnology may have multiple "Genus species" names for different steps as part of an trackway depending on the sediments (e.g. if the animal goes from wet to dry) despite it being a single maker.

If you have any good ones, please do comment!