Paleontology in the United States can first be traced to the Native Americans, who have been familiar with fossils for thousands of years. They both told myths about them and applied them to practical purposes. African slaves also contributed their knowledge; the first reasonably accurate recorded identification of vertebrate fossils in the new world was made by slaves on a South Carolina plantation who recognized the elephant affinities of mammoth molars uncovered there in 1725. The first major fossil discovery to attract the attention of formally trained scientists were the Ice Age fossils of Kentucky's Big Bone Lick. These fossils were studied by eminent intellectuals like France's George Cuvier and local statesmen and frontiersman like Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, William Henry Harrison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. By the end of the 18th century possible dinosaur fossils had already been found.
By the beginning of the 19th, their fossil footprints definitely had. Later in the century as more dinosaur fossils were uncovered eminent paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh were embroiled in a bitter rivalry to collect the most fossils and name the most new prehistoric species. Early in the 20th century major finds continued, like the Ice Age mammals of the La Brea Tar Pits, the Oligocene bonebeds of South Dakota, and the Triassic bonebeds of New Mexico. Mid-to-late twentieth century discoveries in the United States triggered the dinosaur renaissance as the discovery of the bird-like Deinonychus overturned misguided notions of dinosaurs as plodding lizard-like animals, cemented their sophisticated physiology and relationship with birds. Other notable finds include Maiasaura, which provided early evidence for parental care in dinosaurs and "Seismosaurus" a large dinosaur.
Indigenous interpretations
The indigenous people of the United States interpreted the fossil record through a mythological lens. Some of the tactics they used to understand the fossil record were nevertheless similar to scientific approaches. Native American fossil legends often derived from observation and rational speculation based on fossil finds. The indigenous people of the United States also frequently attempted to verify and modify interpretations of the fossil record in order to make sense of new discoveries. Although imperfect, Native American oral histories can preserve accurate information for extended periods of time. Since contact with Europeans, the ensuing epidemics, colonial violence, the Indian Wars, and forced displacement of Native peoples to reservations has resulted in the loss of much of their fossil-related culture. According to folklorist Adrienne Mayor, a common theme in indigenous American fossil legends is "the eternal struggle for natural balance among earth, water and sky forces". Indigenous fossil legends also frequently show motifs resembling major themes in scientific paleontology like deep time, extinction, change over time and relationships between different life forms. Fossils have been used by Native Americans for evidence about the past, healing, personal protection, and trade. Fossil sites were often chosen as the setting of vision quests. Modern Comanche in Oklahoma still use dinosaur and mammoth bones for medicinal purposes. Since the 18th century, fossils, many worth millions of dollars, have been removed from lands belonging to Indigenous peoples, often without permission or compensation. These removals, including from reservations, have been conducted by federal agencies, museums, and academic institutions, some of which have been criticized for failing to acknowledge the ownership rights and cultural significance of these fossils to local communities.
18th century
The first reasonably correct identification of a vertebrate fossil in North America was made in 1725, at a South Carolina plantation called Stono. There slaves had uncovered several large fossil teeth while digging in a swamp. The slaves unanimously identified the teeth as elephant molars, which they would have recognized from life in Africa. In the early 19th century, Georges Cuvier authored an 1806 translated account of the discovery at Stono. He remarked that the African slaves understood the similarity between mammoth remains and elephants before European naturalists.
The first major vertebrate fossil discovery in North America to attract the attention of formally trainer scientists occurred just a few decades later. In July 1739 a French military expedition comprising 123 French soldiers and 319 Native American warriors left Quebec under the command of Charles III Le Moyne (2nd Baron Charles de Longueuil) to help defend New Orleans from the Chickasaw, who were attacking the city on behalf of England. While on their journey down the Ohio River towards the Mississippi, they camped in what is now Kentucky. Some of the expedition's Native members formed a hunting party and embarked to acquire that evening's meal. When they returned that evening their canoes were laden with massive fossils including long tusks, massive teeth, and a thighbone almost as tall as a person. The source of their fossils was the site now known as Big Bone Lick.
Near the end of 1740, Baron Charles de Longueuil departed from New Orleans to France, carrying with him fossils from Big Bone Lick. Longueuil left the remains at the Cabinet du Roi. This Cabinet du Roi (not to be confused with the administration personnel cabinet of the same name) was a collection of curiosities stored in the chateau of the king's botanical garden (which is nowadays the Jardin des plantes, in Paris, main seat of the French National Museum of Natural History). These fossils were first speculated on by eminent French scientists like Jean-Etienne Guettard and Georges Cuvier. A few years later, in 1762, Louis Daubenton read his paper before the French Royal Academy of Science showing that the bones and tusks belonged to an elephant-like species and that the teeth belonged to some kind of carnivorous hippopotamus. In fact the teeth belonged to the same individual, in the present day identified as an American mastodon (Mammut americanum).Adrienne Mayor, Fossil Legends of the First Americans, Princeton University Press, 2005,
In 1767 George Crogan (an Indian agent) sent several fossils from Big Bone Lick to Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin wrote back to express his amazement that the tusks resembled those of an elephant, yet the molars resembled those of a carnivorous animal. Franklin also wondered at the fact that the elephant-like fossils of Big Bone Lick were found in places so much colder than places modern elephants live. He speculated that maybe earth was in a different position in the past and its climate correspondingly different. Soon after the fossils attracted the attention of other major American figures like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Boone, William Henry Harrison, and James Taylor. The mammoth quickly became a symbol of American patriotism and equality with the Old World.
One of the earliest notable events in American dinosaur paleontology occurred on October 5, 1787. Caspar Wistar and Timothy Matlack gave a presentation to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia regarding "'a large thigh bone'" from some mysterious ancient creature found in Late Cretaceous rocks near Woodbury Creek, New Jersey. Modern scientist suspect this bone was actually a metatarsal from a duck-billed dinosaur, which are known from the same sediments.
19th century
Among the earliest major fossil discoveries in America occurred in Massachusetts during the spring of 1802. At that time a boy named Pliny Moody uncovered a piece of reddish sandstone with bird-like three toed footprints while ploughing on his father's farm in South Hadley. This was the first recorded dinosaur footprint discovery in North America. A short while later, Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 through 1806 made several fossil discoveries along its journey, including the first documented fossils from what is now North Dakota. However, only a fish jawbone from Iowa remains of the fossils they collected along the way. Another significant, but unrelated event from the early 19th century was the 1817 organization of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York by Samuel L. Mitchill. In 1869 the American Museum of Natural History was organized out of the Lyceum.
During the Late 1830s Increase Allen Lapham found a variety of fossils in great abundance in some rocky hills near Milwaukee. Lapham sent a sizable sampling of the local fossils to James Hall of New York in 1846. Hall began researching the area and in 1862 recognized the local reefs for what they were. The Silurian-aged reefs of the Milwaukee area were the first Paleozoic reefs in the world to be described for the scientific literature.
In 1835 another major dinosaur track find occurred in Massachusetts. The town of Greenfield was paving its streets when residents noticed fossil footprints on the sandstone slabs that resembled turkey tracks. These rocks were taken from what would turn out to be the most productive dinosaur tracksite in the Connecticut Valley. Later that year, word of the find reached Amherst College geology professor Edward Hitchcock. Hitchcock spent the rest of the summer traveling through the Connecticut Valley examining the fossil footprints. The next year Hitchcock wrote a scientific paper on the fossil footprints of the Connecticut Valley. He thought the tracks were made by giant birds. In 1858, Hitchcock published again on the Connecticut Valley fossil footprints and still thought of them as bird tracks.
In 1842, fossils were found on a plantation owned by a man named Judge Creagh. Local doctors identified the fossils as belonging to an ancient marine reptile, and called it Basilosaurus. However, some of the fossils were shipped to Sir Richard Owen in England. After examining the remains Owen realized the bones actually belonged to a whale, rather than a reptile. Herman Melville's narrator Ishmael gives an account of the discovery in chapters 104–105 of Moby-Dick (1851).
In 1849, land surveyor John Evans was given authority and funding by the U.S. Congress to explore the Badlands region. Evans operated as a subagent of the U.S. geologist David Dale Owen. Under his instruction, Evans created a map of the Badlands, which included descriptive notes on geological beds and formations. He also secured a large amount of invertebrate and vertebrate fossils for an official report by Owen. These fossils were likely obtained from Sioux land without permission from the Tribe. Joseph Leidy of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences later described and classified Owen’s fossil specimens. Some scholars have argued that Leidy’s career and reputation were advanced by his studies of paleontological resources collected from Native American territories.
In 1853 the Pacific Railroad Exploration survey became the first to document Arizona's petrified forest. In 1900 the United States Geological Survey dedicated a report to the petrified forest and encouraged swift action to preserve the spectacular fossils before curiosity seekers removed them all. In 1906, protective action was taken and Petrified Forest officially became a national monument.