Our past creates our present: a brief overview of racism and colonialism in Western paleontology

Abstract

As practitioners of a historical science, paleontologists and geoscientists are well versed in the idea that the ability to understand and to anticipate the future relies upon our collective knowledge of the past. Despite this understanding, the fundamental role that the history of paleontology and the geosciences plays in shaping the structure and culture of our disciplines is seldom recognized and therefore not acted upon sufficiently. Here, we present a brief review of the history of paleontology and geology in Western countries, with a particular focus on North America since the 1800s. Western paleontology and geology are intertwined with systematic practices of exclusion, oppression, and erasure that arose from their direct participation in the extraction of geological and biological resources at the expense of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Our collective failure to acknowledge this history hinders our ability to address these issues meaningfully and systemically in present-day educational, academic, and professional settings. By discussing these issues and suggesting some ways forward, we intend to promote a deeper reflection upon our collective history and a broader conversation surrounding racism, colonialism, and exclusion within our scientific communities. Ultimately, it is necessary to listen to members of the communities most impacted by these issues to create actionable steps forward while holding ourselves accountable for the past.

Colonial history and global economics distort our understanding of deep-time biodiversity

“…Among the countries contributing to less than 10% of the fossil data, Switzerland stands out as a country with a high proportion (86%) of palaeontological research conducted in foreign countries. The ratio of domestic to foreign research for countries such as the US, Canada and Australia, as well as countries of Central and Latin America, almost certainly masks ubiquitous within-country colonialist research practices, given the small proportion of researchers from indigenous and other marginalized groups in academic spaces [21][22][23][24][25] . Similarly, for countries that are overseas territories of former colonialist powers, such as Denmark in the case of Greenland or France in the case of French Polynesia, the local indigenous population rarely, if ever, contributes to research based on localities in these regions (Supplementary Table 1 and Extended Data Fig.…”

Digging deeper into colonial palaeontological practices in modern day Mexico and Brazil

“…Museums share a burden of responsibility for colonial practices that is difficult to ignore [ 13 , 29 ]. It is hard to imagine that nearly a hundred Araripe holotype fossils (and presumably an even larger number of non-type fossils) made it illegally to foreign museums without the knowledge or even support from their respective curators.…”

“…In turn, colonialist nations owe their wealth to these extractive colonial practices that have existed for centuries, allowing them to accumulate knowledge, power and financial resources. These extractive practices persist in the field of palaeontology to this day [ 13 , 14 ].…”

“…This structure of colonial science-derived from the practice of science in the colonies-has given rise to 'scientific colonialism' in the post-colonial world, some of whose extractive aspects are sometimes referred to as parachute science [4][5][6][7], helicopter research [8,9] or even parasitic science [7]. Within scientific colonialism, middle-and low-income countries are perceived as suppliers of data and specimens for the high-income ones, the contributions of local collaborators are devalued or omitted, and the legal frameworks in lower income countries are trivialized or even ignored [6,[10][11][12][13][14]. In turn, colonialist nations owe their wealth to these extractive colonial practices that have existed for centuries, allowing them to accumulate knowledge, power and financial resources.…”

Long-Term Retention of Diverse Paleontologists Requires Increasing Accessibility

“…We recommend creating a syllabus that includes diverse paleontologists 3 (e.g., Mary Anning) and scientists (e.g., Marguerite Thomas Williams) alongside those who are classically referenced. Additionally, discussing fur trappers and Native American navigators highlights how enslaved and native persons found the first fossils in the western United States (Pickrell, 2020;Monarrez et al, 2021).…”