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The history of invertebrate paleozoology (also spelled ''palaeozoology'') differs from the history of paleontology in that the former usually emphasizes paleobiology and the paleoecology of extinct marine invertebrates, while the latter typically emphasizes the earth sciences and the sedimentary rock remains of terrestrial vertebrates. The historical development of sub-vertebrate or non-vertebrate paleozoology may also be described as the history of invertebrate paleobiology or as the history of invertebrate paleontology. Nearly synonymous are the history of marine paleozoology, history of marine paleobiology, and history of marine paleontology -- although the latter three may cover prehistoric fishes, sharks and simpler sea-dwelling organisms. By far, invertebrate paleozoology is the easiest type of fossil collecting. ''Unlike'' the difficult-to-analyze and hard-to-interpret fossils of paleobotany (plants) and micropaleontology (microbes), and ''unlike'' the rarely found and poorly preserved skeletons of vertebrate paleontology, invertebrate fossils are usually both common and simple to identify. This is because many prehistoric invertebrates were hard-shelled mollusks, brachiopods, trilobites, bryozoans, crinoids or corals who were buried amid marine, sediment-preserving conditions; and therefore frequently fossilized. ==Origins of invertebrate paleozoology== Stone-age people were without doubt the very first fossil collectors. Fossilized echinoderms have been found in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, central England, decorating a long-buried human skeleton; the prehistoric gravesite was Neolithic. In widely separated, ancient societies around the globe, there once were many legends and tales of great floods, sea serpents, dragons, sea monsters, and invertebrate cryptozoa associated with so-called ''formed stones'' or ''figured stones'' of sea shells, fishes, corals, sea lilies, tracks, burrows, and trails. But, as civilizations progressed, these odd rocks began to be recognized as the fossilized remains and traces of prehistoric animals. Scholars in ancient Greece produced some of the first scientific insights. Preceding Charles Darwin by two thousand years, Anaximander of Miletus (611 to 547 BCE) proposed a non-creationist, evolutionary theory of life. After Xenophanes of Colophon (576 to 480 BCE) scrutinized fossils of mollusks and other sea-dwelling creatures entombed in rock strata, Xenophanes pronounced that these fossils were evidence of once-living animals. Similarly, after examining fossil sea shells around 440 BCE, Empedocles of Akragas hypothesized that natural selection was occurring over vast, incomprehensible expanses of time. By the middle of the 4th century BCE, Aristotle was composing ''On the Origins of Animals''. Both he and his follower/successor Theophrastus speculated that ''plastic forces'' within the earth had turned animals into fossils of stone. In the medieval Islamic world, Avicenna (979 to 1039 CE), in his ''The Book of Healing'' (1027), offered an explanation of how the stoniness of fossils was caused. Aristotle previously explained it in terms of vaporous exhalations, which Avicenna modified into the theory of petrifying fluids (''succus lapidificatus''), which was elaborated on by Albert of Saxony in the 14th century and accepted in some form by most naturalists by the 16th century. Paleozoology was an area of interest in the European Renaissance of scientific inquiry. Significantly, Georgius Agricola - a founder of mineralology - discussed and illustrated invertebrate fossils in his ''De Natura Fossilium'' (1546 / 1558). Although remembered mostly for his development of binomial nomenclature and biotic systematics in his ''Systema Naturae'' (1735), Carolus Linnaeus also described many prehistoric marine invertebrates which he had observed within Silurian strata in his native Sweden. And while Jean-Étienne Guettard (1715 to 1786) discussed the marine paleoecology of ancient mollusks, more and more fossils were being reported from the Americas and Australasia. Georges L. L. Buffon subsequently described seven geologic ''Epochs of Nature'' (1778) wherein he boldly argued that fossiliferous sedimentary strata proved that the world was at least 70,000 years old. In 1795 the very first geochronologic period -- the Jurassic -- was named. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of invertebrate paleozoology」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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