Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Archival illustration of glyptodonts and giant sloths.
mammal. Embarking from the mouth of the Santa Cruz River south
of the port of San Julian, the crew took a three-week excursion deep
into the interior of Patagonia. The party reached the base of the
imposing Andes before retracing their path to the Atlantic coast.
Perhaps if Darwin had had more time to explore this region, he may
well have discovered that it contains one of the largest known treas-
ures of fossil mammals and dinosaurs in the world, along with Mon-
golia, China, and the western part of the Great Plains in North
America.
The first dinosaur fossils from Patagonia to come to the attention
of the scientific community were discovered by an Argentine army
officer, Captain Buratovich, near the city of Neuquen in 1882. This
region is just one hundred miles south of where we made our discov-
ery. Buratovich was sent to Patagonia to conquer land inhabited by
the native peoples, and like other regrettable military campaigns in
other countries, this one resulted in the systematic extermination of
most of the native tribes in Patagonia.
The bones discovered by Buratovich included tailbones and ribs,
which were identified as belonging to dinosaurs by Florentino
Ameghino, a prominent Argentine paleontologist and internationally
renowned scientist of his time. He is widely recognized as the "Father
of Vertebrate Paleontology" in Argentina. News and publication of
the discovery in 1883 set off a wave of further collecting. Florentino
sent his younger brother Carlos, an expert collector seasoned by the
rough winters of southern Patagonia, to find more. At about the
same time, a newly created museum in La Plata, a town about forty
