1 - Introduction: the science of taphonomy

Summary

Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience.

Leonardo da Vinci

The foundations of taphonomy

Taphonomy is the science of the “laws of burial” (from the Greek taphos + nomos). It is the study of the transition of organic remains from the biosphere into the lithosphere or the processes of “fossilization” from death to diagenesis. Although the term “taphonomy” was first coined by Efremov (1940), the science of taphonomy has been practiced for centuries (Cadée, 1991). Taphonomic investigations were first conducted by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), who used observations on living and dead bivalves to infer that fossils found in nearby mountains had not been transported there by the Biblical Deluge, but had actually lived and died in situ (see excerpts from da Vinci's notebooks in Bolles, 1997; see also Chapters 2, 3). Subsequent taphonomic inferences were made by none other than Steno, who concluded that so-called tonguestones or glossopetrae were actually shark's teeth (Albritton, 1986); Robert Hooke, who compared the cellular structure of cork to that of petrified wood, thereby supporting Steno's assertion that fossils were of organic origin and not the result of the “plastic virtue” of the surrounding rocks (Albritton, 1986); the vertebrate paleontologist and anatomist, Cuvier; Alcide d'Orbigny, who erected the first detailed biostratigraphic zonations; and Armand Gressly, who formulated the concept of “facies.”.