Surprisingly, the idea of extinction is a relatively new one, being around 300 years old. During the early 18th century, many Europeans exploring the new world began discovering huge bones and molar teeth belonging to a massive animal that had not yet been discovered in a living state. This animal was the American Mastodon or wooly mammoth. After the bones were transported back to Europe, many scientists and researchers studied them and presented hypotheses on what kind of animal they could have originated from. During this time period, most people believed all species that had existed throughout our planet’s history were still alive, so the bones presented a problem for those who supported this theory. When Lewis and Clark embarked on their journey to the western United States, Thomas Jefferson had hopes that they would discover these mastodons roaming through the forests. He wrote, “‘Such is the economy of nature, that no instance can be produced of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work so weak as to be broken’”[i]. It wasn’t until the end of the 18th century that a man named George Cuvier introduced the idea that some species had been lost. He believed that the mastodon bones belonged to one of these lost species and set out to collect more evidence to back up his theory. Over the next decade, Cuvier examined remains from dozens of different animals, and his ideas came to change the way that humanity viewed life, and death. Species died out, and not just the mastodon, but possibly hundreds and thousands of other species whose remains would never be discovered. This revelation was one of the greatest of its time and helped to shape further scientific advancements, like the idea of evolution and natural selection.
[i] Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. NY: Henry Holt & Company, 2014.
Image: http://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/franche-comte/sites/regions_france3/files/assets/images/2016/06/07/capture_docoeucran_2016-06-07_ac_09.45.46.png
The Holocene Extinction 