RE: what if?

[Jeff Hecht <jhecht@world.std.com>]

Tom HOltz wrote:
>>    My question is, then: How would dinosaur paleontology be different if
>> Brown had published his "Daptosaurus" in the 1930s, instead of Ostrom
>> publishing *Deinonychus* in 1969?-*Thescelosaurus*
>
>If the "Daptosaurus" material found in the 1930s had been published, then
>not too much would have been different: the material was far from complete,
>and many of the most significant features of dromaeosaurids are not preseved
>in the would-have-been-holotype.  After all, the fragmentary holotypes of
>_Dromaeosaurus_ and _Velociraptor_ (and the other maniraptorans _Oviraptor_
>and _Saurornithoides_) were all known since the 1920s without producing the
>"Renaissance" that the more complete _Deinonychus_ material did.
>
>Now, had Brown found more complete "Daptosaurus" material, I think the
>Renaissance could have happened earlier.  I suppose had he found such
>fossils, he would have been more encouraged to publish them quickly, rather
>than keeping them on the publication "backburner".
>
>(By the same token, discovery of complete _Velociraptor_ skeletons by the
>Central Asiatic Expeditions of the AMNH in the 1920s, or feathered Liaoning
>specimens at almost any earlier date, might have also generated a similar
>result).

I doubt it would have worked that well. Brown spent a lot of time
collecting in the 1930s, but my impression is that less time was spent
preparing and analyzing. There was a general lack of resources in the
1930s. Although that threw some people into dinosaur research, many people
were simply busy surviving. (R.T. Bird was cruising out west on his
motorcycle, having lost his savings in the stock market crash of 1929, when
he discovered a skull that looked interesting, and became intrigued. But
what really got him in the door at AMNH was his father's connections
there.)

A distressing number of discoveries in many (civilian) fields were made
just before and during the Depression, but never followed up for lack of
money until after World War II. Also, the time had to be right to recognize
what the new finds were and their importance. How many great discoveries
have come out of museum storage rooms, where they had sat unrecognized for
years?
-- Jeff Hecht