Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbam Here celebrated paleo artist Ray Troll told us
Speaker 1: in an email, shared passion for an obscure topic is
Speaker 1: what binds scientists and artists. They're both curiosity driven, and
Speaker 1: he would know. Based in Alaska, Troll builds on scientific
Speaker 1: findings to create art that depicts prehistoric life. Through paleo art,
Speaker 1: fossils are revived. A single drawing or sculpture can define
Speaker 1: how the public will visualize and extinct species, so paleo
Speaker 1: artists strive to keep their work as accurate as possible,
Speaker 1: a task that gets harder when the experts disagree. It's
Speaker 1: a tough job, to be sure, but also a dream
Speaker 1: job for loads of fossil fans and dinosaur enthusiasts. But
Speaker 1: how do they go about creating it? First off, a
Speaker 1: little history. A dinosaur renaissance changed the game. Paleo art
Speaker 1: didn't always feature dinosaurs. All prehistoric organisms, from early palm
Speaker 1: trees to wooly mammoth make worthy subjects. Nevertheless, the fascinating
Speaker 1: reptiles were at the center of a significant period in
Speaker 1: the history of this art form, called the dinosaur renaissance.
Speaker 1: Prior to the nineteen sixties, dinosaurs were largely written off
Speaker 1: as dimwitted, tail dragging hulks. Most paleo art from the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century reflects that view, but in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: Yale paleontologist John Ostrom published a new paper on Dano
Speaker 1: Nikes and eleven foot that's three point three meter predator
Speaker 1: akin to the Jurassic Park imagining of velociraptor. Noting its
Speaker 1: long legs and sickle shaped claws, Ostrom claimed Dano Niicus
Speaker 1: was an athletic beast who ran down its prey and
Speaker 1: might have even hunted in packs. The scientist went on
Speaker 1: to popularize the now widely accepted idea that today's birds
Speaker 1: are descended from Mesozoic dinosaurs. Exciting hypotheses like these changed
Speaker 1: the discourse about how dinosaurs looked and behaved. In the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and eighties, A growing number of artists responded
Speaker 1: by illustrating the creatures and active dynamic poses. What followed
Speaker 1: was a renewed public interest in both the study of
Speaker 1: dinosaurs and in paleo art itself, But there was a problem.
Speaker 1: Bare bones and skeletons often don't tell you a whole
Speaker 1: lot about the overlying soft tissue. Hence, some paleo artists
Speaker 1: have chosen to reconstruct animals reptiles in particular, as lanky
Speaker 1: beasts with ultra low body fat, skinny tails, and heads
Speaker 1: that are largely devoid of cartilage or loose skin. This
Speaker 1: practice has been called shrink wrapping, and if you couldn't
Speaker 1: tell from the moniker, it's been contentious. Troll broke it
Speaker 1: down for us quote. I think there are some really
Speaker 1: valid points to be made about shrink wrapping. Many paleo
Speaker 1: artists are reluctant to jump into more speculative reconstructions, preferring
Speaker 1: to play it safer. So by keeping their animals lean
Speaker 1: and mean, paleo artists can highlight known skeletal anatomy without
Speaker 1: making conjectural guesses about an animal soft tissues that might
Speaker 1: not have been preserved. Back in the dinosaur Renaissance, shrink
Speaker 1: rapping was in fashion. That's no longer the case. Modern
Speaker 1: critics point out that living animals tend to look a
Speaker 1: lot different than you might expect if you had nothing
Speaker 1: to go on but their naked skeletons. Troll pointed out
Speaker 1: that things like trunks, ears, and blubber don't usually fossilize.
Speaker 1: We also spoke via email with Matt Celeski, paleo artist
Speaker 1: and museum exhibit designer, who also offered his thoughts on
Speaker 1: the issue quote, today's paleo artists are looking more closely
Speaker 1: at the extent of soft tissue in living animals. I
Speaker 1: think this fleshing out of paleo art makes for heightened
Speaker 1: levels of believability in the reconstructions and greater diversity in
Speaker 1: the way artists approach their subjects. In other words, chunky
Speaker 1: limbs and necks and not to mention, poufy dino feathers
Speaker 1: have gone mainstream, but figuring out what those features might
Speaker 1: have looked like takes some serious research. To scientists, the
Speaker 1: skeletal drawing is one of the most useful forms of
Speaker 1: paleo art. An animal skeleton is usually depicted in an
Speaker 1: upright position that is standing or running, and juxtaposed against
Speaker 1: a black silhouette that represents the creature's body profile. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: in the fossil record, complete skeletons tend to be rare.
Speaker 1: When parts are missing or broken, scientists and artists can
Speaker 1: only speculate about why those elements looked like Sluski said.
Speaker 1: Every skeleton presents unique challenges, but I find the most
Speaker 1: difficult thing is filling in the parts you don't know,
Speaker 1: extrapolating the shapes of missing bones, or correcting the shapes
Speaker 1: of bones that have been damaged or distorted by time.
Speaker 1: Filling in each missing piece involves a complex mix of research,
Speaker 1: inference and educated guesses, and I always wonder if they
Speaker 1: are better choices than the ones I end up making.
Speaker 1: But these efforts aren't new. Let me take you back
Speaker 1: to eighteen fifty three, when sculpture Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was
Speaker 1: hired to build more than thirty full sized concrete models
Speaker 1: of prehistoric animals for Crystal Palace Park in London, England.
Speaker 1: The man really did his homework, consulting experts, scrutinizing fossils,
Speaker 1: and reviewing the scientific literature. In short, he was a
Speaker 1: dedicated paleo artist. One of hawkins guandon molds had a
Speaker 1: carnivorous gut big enough to hold a table and some chairs,
Speaker 1: so as a publicity stund for his project, twenty one guests,
Speaker 1: including paleontologists William Buckland and Sir Richard Owen, were invited
Speaker 1: to climb down into the belly of the beast. An
Speaker 1: eight course dinner party, The Big Shindig, took place on
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve in eighteen fifty three. Restoration projects have
Speaker 1: helped these master works survived to the present day. The
Speaker 1: beasts attract thousands of visitors every year, even though they're
Speaker 1: no longer deemed accurate. Hawkins Megalosaurus, for example, stands menacingly
Speaker 1: on all fours, but scientists now think the meat eating
Speaker 1: dinosaur was by pedal. Nevertheless, the Victorian era giants capture
Speaker 1: the prevailing wisdom of their time, giving them immense cultural value.
Speaker 1: Prehistory matters, but so does our history. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by Mark Mancini and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other well preserved topics,
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