What drives a man to covet big bones?

_Tombstone_

Dinosaur collecting isn't just for museums any more – film stars and sheikhs do it too.

https://aeon.co/essays/what-drives-dinosaur-collectors-to-covet-big-bones

Adam Khor

I'd be quite interested to know what other members of the forum think about this, starting with the OP. (Most of us are male, right?)

Personally, I think it all goes down to two things, the first being the sense of wonder that we all have as kids and most people lose to a degree as they grow older and more cynical. Dinosaurs being so huge and strong and frightening simply elicit more awe than most creatures. It's a human thing. The animals most admired today are the big spectacular ones; tigers, lions, great white sharks...

It is also true however that men are more drawn to dangerous, large beasts than women are. Which makes me think that there's some sort of memory from prehistoric times, when males were doing most of the hunting and gaining status by facing and killing dangerous prey. So we don't hunt mammoths anymore, but if we have the money to buy a dinosaurs skeleton, we may as well. The article mentions Leonardo DiCaprio who is a well known activist for wildlife conservation: so even tho he has enough money to go shoot lions and elephants to África if he wanted, he probable sees owning a dinosaur as a much more aceptable alternative; a way to have that awe-inspiring trophy without having to kill a thing.
I know if I had the money, my fossil collection would be a lot bigger in more than one way.

Also, Im pretty sure Mark Norell probably knows this, and is only saying he doesnt get it to avoid encouraging people from buying fossils. If he didnt feel the same awe of dinosaurs as all those collectors he probably wouldnt be studying dinos to begin with. There's plenty of other lesser fossils out there, and a lot less competition to study them. "A medium to do science"? Yeah alright...

(Also, since when is he the world's most famous paleontologist?)

Wibbs

Adam Khor wrote: »

Also, Im pretty sure Mark Norell probably knows this, and is only saying he doesnt get it to avoid encouraging people from buying fossils. If he didnt feel the same awe of dinosaurs as all those collectors he probably wouldnt be studying dinos to begin with. There's plenty of other lesser fossils out there, and a lot less competition to study them. "A medium to do science"? Yeah alright...

+1. You hear this from archaeologists too. Both seem to forget that their science itself was started by "amateurs" and the biggest collections in museums today were collected by them and quite the few important finds are still being made by amateurs. I'm fully 100% behind the protection of important sites and monetisation of fossils worries me(though it was always thus), but freezing out and being dismissive of the engaged and careful amateur is daft. Of the sciences one stands out that doesn't do this; astronomy. In that field the amateur is positively encouraged and this has led to some great science down the years.

Manach

On the one hand, such remains have always been a status symbol which does seem to attract a certain type of person who is competitive by nature: eg "The Bone Wars" of the 19thC in the US as one museum sought to undo the other to collect the best of the dinosaurs from the US bad lands.
On the other, I recall reading of Mary Anning during the Victorian period, book Dragon Seekers, who made quite the respectable living from collecting such bones.