General Fossils

Remarkable examples of what occurs to bone after millions of years of sedimentation, fossils serve as the best record of prehistoric life. For as much as they tell us about the earliest animals that roamed the planet, fossils are also strikingly beautiful, making them fantastic fragments to collect.

Though dinosaur bones and petrified pieces of the prehistoric world have been uncovered over the past several millennia, their significance was little understood until approximately three hundred years ago. It was during that age that scientists began piecing together the historical record of fossils to learn the gripping tale of life on the planet in its earliest days.

During this time, collecting of fossils grew exponentially as authentic paleontologists and energetic aficionados began buying up unearthed specimens. Though discovery of dinosaur fossils continues today, their overall rarity makes them a captivating collector's item.

Quick Facts

• The discovery of a fossilized Megalosaurus femur in late 17th century England revealed how little humans understood the prehistoric world: a professor at Oxford concluded it was the bone from a prior human giant
• The first nearly complete dinosaur fossil found in the United States was from the duck-billed hadrosaur family. It was uncovered in New Jersey in 1838
• Two years after the discovery of an Apatosaurus fossilized skeleton in 1877, an enthusiastic paleontologist uncovered a slightly larger skeleton and christened it the Brontosaurus. Early 20th-century examination revealed that they were the same species