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Wellgoodmornin t1_j9mjlt1 wrote

Reply to comment by jcrave in The First Fossil Finders in North America Were Enslaved and Indigenous People by nemo_to_zero

But that's pretty much par for the course for things like that, right? Everyone knows Lord Carnarvon found King Tuts tomb but no one knows who the guys digging were. Not that it should be that way it just is.

It would be really interesting if they had a journal or something from one of the slaves as unlikely as that would be, but this is essentially "People used slaves to dig holes in 18th century America" which is pretty expected.

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InevitableBohemian t1_j9mtr91 wrote

If you read the article, it has some pretty cool stories about early fossil discovery and identification from enslaved and indigenous people, including some of the first identification of a mammoth molar as belonging to an elephant-like creature (the slaves had some experience with elephants, you see.) Notably, this stood at odds to a prevailing theory that it was from giants who drowned in Noah's flood.

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Wellgoodmornin t1_j9mvgem wrote

I will admit it's more interesting than i originally thought. I stopped reading after they seemed to move on from the elephant tooth to Lewis and Clark because I wanted to know more about the elephant tooth and it annoyed me. I didn't realize they circle back to it.

*mammoth tooth

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jcrave t1_j9mjtlx wrote

> Not that it should be that way it just is.

There’s your answer why this article exists.

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TRex19000 t1_j9mkkob wrote

But every non insane person knows slave labor was used in every aspect back then?

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jcrave t1_j9mr519 wrote

Slave labor in early American paleontology is definitely not a topic that’s been explored a lot. People may “know” it existed, but there are always more stories to tell. That’s the great thing about historical research.

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b_needs_a_cookie t1_j9nbmbx wrote

You'd be surprised what people aren't aware of or what they default to societal biases on if not clearly informed. Also, having a general inkling about slavery being used versus having a story/article/documentary clearly describe, model and expand upon its use will result into two different levels of an informed population.

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MOIST_PEOPLE t1_j9ns189 wrote

Children don't if they are not told. I don't know how old you are, or if you have kids, but at my age, almost 50, and having kids; You get a weird perspective of how youngster don't know anything they aren't told, and that once you die, you will be forgotten quickly, along with everything you know. Social narratives only live a short time as truths, real quick the change and become something different.

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