Table Of ContentREMNANTS OF ANCIENT LIFE
REMNANTS OF
ANCIENT LIFE
T H E N E W S C I E N C E
O F O L D F O S S I L S
DA L E E . G R E E N WA LT
prince ton university press
princet on & oxford
Copyright © 2022 by Dale E. Greenwalt
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Greenwalt, Dale E., 1949– author.
Title: Remnants of ancient life : the new science of old fossils /
Dale E. Greenwalt.
Description: Prince ton, New Jersey : Prince ton University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022013105 (print) | LCCN 2022013106 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780691221144 (hardback) | ISBN 9780691221151 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Biomolecules, Fossil. | DNA, Fossil— Analy sis. |
BISAC: NATURE / Fossils | SCIENCE / Earth Sciences / General
Classification: LCC QP517.F66 G74 2022 (print) | LCC QP517.F66 (ebook) |
DDC 572/.786— dc23/eng/20220701
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2022013105
LC ebook rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2022013106
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
Editorial: Alison Kalett and Hallie Schaeffer
Production Editorial: Kathleen Cioffi
Text Design: Heather Hansen
Jacket Design: Chris Ferrante
Production: Jacqueline Poirier
Publicity: Sara Henning- Stout and Kate Farquhar- Thomson
Jacket art: Encrinus lilliformis illustrated in James Parkinson, Organic Remains
of a Former World, vol. 2 (1808). Although there is no evidence that this
particular specimen contains ancient pigments, the purple color was
added here to connote the fact that similar fossils do contain ancient
pigments. Courtesy of Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
This book has been composed in Arno Pro
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 A Blood- Engorged Mosquito 6
2 In Situ 21
3 The Purple Fossil 43
4 The Black Pigment 68
5 Dino Feathers 82
6 Ancient Biometals 96
7 Proteins and Proteomes 108
8 Dino Bones 126
9 Ancient DNA’s Tenuous Origins 145
10 Our Inner Neandertal 171
11 Plants 188
12 The Future of Studying the Past 208
Notes 229
Illustration Credits 257
Index 261
v
ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
Remnants of Ancient Life had its origin in the discovery of a
46- million- year- old blood- engorged mosquito collected by the
Constenius family of Whitefish, Montana. Their contribution
is a wonderful example of the potential for amateur fossil en-
thusiasts to contribute to science. As a direct result of the pub-
lication of a description of that amazing fossil, I received an
invitation from Kenneth De Baets (Friedrich- Alexander-
University Erlangen- Nuremberg) and John Huntley (Univer-
sity of Missouri) to write a chapter on the fossil rec ord of blood
for a book entitled The Evolution and Fossil Reco rd of Parasitism.
The lit er a ture searches that I did for that article introduced me
to the exciting and growing field of ancient biomolecules. But
there are numerous other individuals whose contributions
were critical to the publication of Remnants of Ancient Life.
I would like to thank the staff of the Paleobiology Depart-
ment of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natur al History
(NMNH), with special thanks to Conrad Labandeira, Curator
of Fossil Arthropods, for sponsoring my position in the depart-
ment as a Resident Research Associate. The nourishing environ-
ment at the museum makes it easy to envision new proj ects—
such as a book about natur al science that seeks to bring science
to the nonscientists of the world. I would like to thank Richard
Barclay, Selina Cole, Vera Korasidis, Tim Rose, Yulia Goreva,
Sandra Siljeström, Finnegan Marsh, and Jon Wingerath, all from
vii
viii Acknowle dgments
the NMNH, for conversations about ancient biomolecules and
the fossils that contain them and/or their assistance in my own
research with ancient biomolecules. Discussions with Bill Rem-
ber (University of Idaho), Stephen Godfrey and John Nance
(Calvert Marine Museum), Chris Mason (AVROBio, Inc.),
Derek Briggs (Yale University) and Klaus Wolkenstein (Univer-
sity of Göttingen) w ere also invaluable. I thank Alan Munro, Jill
Warren, Rich Barclay (NMNH), Dong Ren (Capital Normal
University, Beijing) and the Denver Museum of Nature and Sci-
ence for photo graphs that appear in Remnants of Ancient Life as
well as Yoho National Park, Glacier National Park and the
NMNH for permission to photo graph specimens.
My agent Laura Wood deserves par tic ul ar credit and thanks
for convincing me that most all of my initial assumptions about
writing science for the lay public w ere wrong. It was a difficult
lesson to learn but, ultimately, an invaluable one. Thanks are due
to Derek Briggs (Yale University), Evan Saitta (University of
Chicago) and Ginny Gray Johnson for early reviews of the man-
uscript and to Jill Warren and Ginny Gray Johnson for
proofreading.
Thanks to Amanda Moon and James Brandt for edits of the
book that greatly increased the clarity and comprehensibility of
the text, and Julie Shawvan, who produced the index. The
people at Prince ton University Press were, of course, at many
levels, critical to the publication of Remnants of Ancient Life. I
want to thank Alison Kalett, who first recognized a glint of po-
tential in the original manuscript, and Hallie Schaeffer (Assis-
tant Editor, Biology) and Kathleen Cioffi (Se nior Production
Editor) and their teams, who did a very professional job of con-
verting a manuscript into a book. Thanks also to Sara Henning
Stout and Kate Farquhar- Thomson, the publicists for the book.
REMNANTS OF ANCIENT LIFE
