Dinosaur mounts have become so fundamental to our idea of what makes a natural history museum that it can be difficult to imagine the institutions ever existing without them. So does it matter that 140 years after the first Hadrosaurus foulkii mount, today’s paleontologists have reinterpreted its reliance on four rather than two legs? Yes, says Jesse Smith:
… it’s not so much that, say, Hadrosaurus walked on four legs, but more that this new knowledge reflects a better understanding of the world as it was before we appeared in it. We’re compelled by improved understandings of those environments that have yet to open themselves to human occupation — Mars, the deep sea, the past. Understanding life in a way that either spatially or temporally transcends the presence of humans builds a context that helps us understand that presence. The fact that we have a better idea of what the Hadrosaurus’ skull looked like, that we can replace some of the bones Hawkins used to fill in the blanks, so to speak, suggests that an image of the past is fully constructible if only we’re given the right parts.
Skeletal Remains
Dinosaur mounts have become so fundamental to our idea of what makes a natural history museum that it can be difficult to imagine the institutions ever existing without them. So does it matter that 140 years after the first Hadrosaurus foulkii mount, today’s paleontologists have reinterpreted its reliance on four rather than two legs? Yes, says Jesse Smith: