The History of Prehistory in Life
12:50 pm
LIFE magazine and Google have begun making millions of images from the LIFE photo archive available online. Some quick searches have already brought these interesting items to my attention:
- “Cave Man of Early Britain”, shown above, who seems quite a bit rougher around the edges than his rarified contemporary, l’Homme Neanderthal.
- A dramatically foreshortened moa.
- A Jurassic scene by early paleoartist Joseph Smit. Unsigned pieces that look like Smit’s work include this size comparison of a human, Diplodocus, and Gigantosaurus, and a couple of placid sauropods unperturbed by the kangaroo-hopping carnosaur (Laelaps?) entering from stage left.
- Paleolithic art authority Abbe Henri Breuil.
- Lots of AMNH exhibits and specimens:
- Walter Granger and Barnum Brown alongside the AMNH Tenontosaurus.
- Assembling the Anatotitan pair at the AMNH.
- Working on the old Tyrannosaurus mount.
- Cleaning a cast of the Styracosaurus skull.
- The fossil of the gliding reptile Icarosaurus, before it flew the coop at the AMNH (and made its way back again).
- A Placodus skeleton.
- Dusting the Wilmette Meteorite.
- And this shot of teenager Tony Lessa sporting a Coelophysis on his ride.
Egads, yet another “Gigantosaurus” illustration? Thanks for the heads up, I’ll have to update my post.
This illustration actually gives a species name, which lets us know that it is now a member of the genus Tornieria. Recent analysis indicates that it was actually the same size as Diplodocus but appears to have proportionally shorter limbs. I have no idea why they assumed it was so, well, gigantic.