17th century in paleontology

This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the 17th century.

1665

Athanasius Kircher in Mundus Subterraneus describes giant bones as those belonging to extinct races of humans.

1671

Martin Lister, a member of London's Royal Society declares that despite their appearances, fossils were never part of any animals.

1677

Robert Plot misinterprets a piece of Megalosaurus thigh bone as belonging to a war elephant brought to Britain when the region was under the control of the Roman Empire. Despite recognizing this find as a petrified bone, he would later make the curious claim that fossils were made by God to decorate the inside of the Earth, and were thus never part of real animals.

1696

Robert Plot, the first illustrator of a dinosaur bone, dies in Borden, Kent, the village where he was born.

1699

Edward Lhuyd, a Welsh naturalist, speculates that fossils form when the minute spawn of oceanic life is carried inland by air currents and is forced to germinate inside of rocks. He also names Rutellum, a specimen now recognized as a Cetiosaurid Sauropod Dinosaur.