Lapides figurati
Lapides figurati ( Latin , "shaped stones") or figure stones was a name for fossils ("petrifications") in use until the 18th century . The name was introduced by the naturalist Conrad Gessner in the 16th century.
The term first appeared with the ancient philosopher Aristotle . For this, the lower animals emerged (following Anaximander ) through a kind of spontaneous generation ( generatio spontana or generatio aequivoca ) from mud, in moist earth, from putrefactive substances or similar material; the lapides figurati are thus relics of this spontaneous generation. Tertullian , Eusebius of Caesarea, and other Christian scholars viewed the findings as the remains of the great biblical flood, sunk in the mud. These ideas shaped scientific thinking up into the 19th century. So the footprints of a dinosaur found around 1802 were classified by Yale and Harvard scholars as the footprints of [Noah | [Noahs]] ravens. Only with the advent of Darwin's theory of evolution was it finally possible for science to classify and evaluate the findings accordingly.
Individual evidence
- ^ Ulrich Lehmann: Paleontological Dictionary . 4th edition. Enke Verlag , Stuttgart, 1996. Page 86