The tongue twister “She Sells Sea Shells” is one of the best known of its genre. Implied by its title, the tongue twister simply concerns a woman that scours the beach and sells the shells that she finds. Mary Anning was a young woman born to a working class family that lived in Lyme Regis, a small seaside town in England. She grew up helping her father comb the beaches for fossils they would sell to tourists. Even after her father died, Mary kept up the fossil collecting practice in order to sustain her mother and brother.
But what started out as a means of survival for the Annings turned out to impact the world of paleontology in the early 19th century, though Mary was rarely credited for her finds. The credit typically went to her male colleagues that reported on her discoveries. The first section of the paper will briefly discuss paleontological theories prior to Mary Anning’s discoveries. This discussion will provide some context for her findings and the state of the field of paleontology when she came onto the scene.
Before Mary’s birth, the Enlightenment had taken place throughout Europe. Prior to the Enlightenment, it was thought that the Earth was 6,000-7,000 years old based on calculations from the bible, and most simply accepted that as fact. But the Enlightenment marked a rising trend of questioning what Christianity had been teaching up until that point, and particularly promoted scientific explanations in favor of religious ones.
Georges-Louis Le-Leclerc, Comte de Bouffon, was one of those Enlightenment thinkers that put forth ideas were radical for their time. He posited that the Earth was 70,000 years old, not the 6,000-7,000 years that had been previously accepted. He also believed that as animals entered new habitats, their bodies could change. While Buffon’s estimate of the Earth’s age was much too young, he was still suggesting the controversial idea that the Earth was older than Christianity taught, and in addition to that, he supported a preliminary evolutionary theory.
Georges Cuvier was another Enlightenment thinker that thought the world was older than commonly thought, but he developed a new theory different from Buffon’s. Cuiver suggested extinction. Christianity taught that all life that existed on Earth had always existed. Theologians pointed to fossils of elephants found in Italy (which were actually mammoths) and said that meant there were probably counterparts of other fossils living on the Earth . Cuvier used those mammoth and mastodon fossils to argue against Christianity’s theories.
In 1796, he presented a paper in France arguing that mammoths were a species separate from Indian and African elephants, and that mammoths were extinct. He compared elephant bones to mammoth and mastodon fossils to show the differences between the three. And perhaps most importantly, he directly refuted the idea that mammoths and mastodons were still roaming the Earth by pointing out the fact that it was unbelievable to think that such a large animal was living on the planet without being noticed.
By saying that the Earth was old, and that fossils were of extinct creatures, Cuvier was making way for fossils to be more seriously considered and accepted, and by extension saw to it that Mary’s discoveries would be studied. Mary did not come onto the paleontology scene without any idea of what had been previously discovered, nor did she initially understand the importance of the specimens that she found. Following her father’s death, Mary was the primary supporter of her mother Molly and her brother Joseph. Their poverty was dire enough that they were living off of parish relief for several years.
So when Mary made her first significant discovery of a marine reptile related to dinosaurs that would be christened Ichthyosaurus, it was nothing more than a financial gain to them, as Mary and her family sold the creature’s bones to a local for 23 pounds. The fossil changed hands several times before eventually being sold to the British Museum where its significance was recognized. The Fossil Hunter by Shelly Emling emphasizes the importance of Mary’s early find. Emling’s book mentions how Sir Everard Home, Britain’s leading anatomist analyzed the fossil.
The creature was so strange, he was unable to put it into a specific category. Despite its very fish-like anatomy, it also had bones around the eye socket previously only seen in birds. Home eventually gave an address concerning the fossil, but never gave Mary credit for finding it. And she was not given credit either during the time that the Ichthyosaurus was displayed in the Egyptian Hall in the British Museum . The next section of the paper will focus on her other significant contributions to science, as well as her relationship with the prominent figures in geology at the time.
The paper will emphasize the fact that though these men never said anything against her, and appeared to have a decent relationship with her, they still rarely gave her credit for her finds. In December 1823 Mary found another marine reptile. But this one was significantly different from the Ichthyosaurus in that its appearance was even stranger with features that almost seemed exaggerated. It had a barrel-like body, five paddles, a long neck and a small tail that seemed disproportionate to its neck.
The creature would eventually be named a Plesiosaurus. Mary sold the animal to the Duke of Buckingham at the price of around 110 or 200 pounds. The significance of her find was immediately noticed. The fossil was described to a massive audience in 1824 at a Geologic Society meeting. But that description didn’t include any credit given to Mary. The Plesiosaurus had previously been known from a few bones that the scientists Henry de la Beche and Conybeare had found, but this was the first nearly complete skeleton of the creature .
It was so strange looking that one of the pioneers in the history of evolutionary theory and paleontology, George Cuvier, thought that it might have been some kind of hoax. But his criticisms were drowned at the amazement expressed by Mary’s find. William Buckland, the first professor of Geology at Oxford said of finding the Plesiosaurus, “The discovery of this genus forms one of the most important additions that Geology has made to comparative anatomy” . Mary in fact had a rather positive relationship with Buckland and De la Beche.
Buckland often took trips to Lyme Regis, and Buckland’s daughter wrote that, “For years afterwards, local gossip preserved traditions of his adventures with that geological celebrity, Mary Anning… “. In fact, an American geologist went further to describe her relationship with Buckland by saying that Mary would often get into debates with Buckland regarding the anatomy of fossils that she found. As for De le Beche, his relationship with Mary began early in his life due to the fact that he lived in Lyme Regis as a time for a child, and it’s likely that Mary’s family introduced him to the science of fossils.
But whether or not they did, he remained fond of Mary, as they kept in contact throughout her life, and drew a scene of ancient sea life that was sold to help Mary financially when she was in dire straits . However, whatever fondness those men had for her didn’t mean that they were able to see past the blinders of the gender roles of the 19th century in order to give her credit. De le Beche and Buckland typically received the credit for the fossils that she found.
The specimens of ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus species were attributed to Conybeare, with no mention of her at all. Emling’s book The Fossil Hunter emphasizes this point and illustrates it well. When her discovery of the first ichthyosaur specimen was described in journals of the time, she was not mentioned at all, and the fact that she had uncovered the fossil and retrieved it was left out. And when Conybeare had to make some sort of mention of Mary’s help in discovering fossils, he only called her a “proprietor” without any mention of her identity beyond that.
This lack of recognition could partially be attributed to the fact that she left little written record behind, and thus the credit simply went to the men that further studied her discoveries. However, that doesn’t completely account for the fact that due to her class and gender, she wasn’t given credit where credit was due. Mary and those around her weren’t ignorant to the fact that her proper credit was being taken away. A friend of Mary’s said that “These men of learning have sucked her brains, and made a great deal by publishing works, of which she furnished the contents, while she derived none of the advantages”.
