Researcher Here! Studying the sociology of fossil collecting.

[DonnaY]

Hi everyone! My name is Donna Yates and I am an Associate Professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. I am here because I have just been awarded a European Research Council grant to study, among other things, the connection that people have to fossils from a sociological point of view. I am hoping that by understanding why people collect fossils I can begin to understand the "darker" side of things, such as fossil forgery and fossil smuggling. I'm going to mostly be working in the Americas, but I have a colleague working out of Africa and another out of Australia/New Zealand so this will be quite a global study. I am hoping to learn a lot here and have fun in the process!

 

About me otherwise: I'm originally an archaeologist from the USA, and I used to only study art crime, but I'm now living in the Netherlands and thinking about fossils all day long! This project is a dream come true for me. In the lead up to getting my funding I spent several weeks in Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, visiting sites, shops, museums, and fairs...just getting a feel for palaeontology generally. I also went fossil hunting for the first time and walked away with a handful of brachiopods and a "feeling" that I have only had before while doing archaeology. Since then I've gone hunting in Scotland, where I was living until January. Now there are basically mosasaurs in my backyard here in Maastricht!

 

There's just something indescribable about holding something so old, so ancient. I think it is that indescribable feeling that I am searching for in my research project. That's what I want to know about.

 

So hello again!

 

 

[snolly50]

Welcome, I hope you will find exposure to this Forum a source of insight and information.

[Boesse]

Hello Donna! There are some paleontologists on here as well - this is 'coastalpaleo' from Twitter.

[Fossildude19]

Welcome to the Forum.  

We look forward to your participation and insights.  

[sharkdoctor]

 

@DonnaY Welcome from Virginia! Congratulations on the award!

I'm fascinated by that topic as well, though don't get to pursue it for a living. Happy to help advance your aims from a professional-amateur (pro-am) collector/researcher perspective (professional health science researcher in my day job).

 

Have you had any contact with Bruce McFadden? He had a great NSF grant that was aimed at connecting amateur fossil networks around the US. It is now defunct, but myself and many others presented at NAPC several years ago and I suspect that the abstracts and slides from those presentations would give you a great overview of the motivations of pro-am's in the USA. The slides from those sessions are listed here: https://www.myfossil.org/napc-symposium-celebrating-public-participation-in-paleontology/

 

One of my two sessions, as an example of pro-am interests, are here: https://www.idigbio.org/sites/default/files/workshop-presentations/napc-2014/Mon-3.15-Alford.pdf

There was also a session from a researcher at UNC? that was focused on a simple quantitative study of amateurs motivations, as I recall. Pretty basic, though. A couple of questions, as I recall.

 

I don't think you need to go all the way to forgeries to get to the dark side of paleontology! It is a sport that is notorious for all sorts of chicanery, big personalities and lifelong rivalries. 

 

BTW, I will send a DM with my contact information in case I can be of any use in connecting you to the collecting community in the VA/DC/MD area.

[JohnJ]

Welcome, Donna.  Let me know if I can assist in any way.  

[Bobby Rico]

Welcome to the forum 

This is a very  interesting topics for me and I can answer it from my point of view as an artist. 

My own idea about collectioning or my own fossil collection, is I am not just trying to understand life though the filter of evolution it is also about myself the collector to fulfilling an urge to be creative. I feel collectors are Artists because undoubtedly if your not storing your collections in boxes in the garage, your displaying it in some form on shelving , in cabinets or collectors draws. By doing this an level of understanding of aesthetics is used and the urge to be creative is scratched this can be proven by the simply feeling of a sense of accomplishment after arranging a shelve in your cabinet. Displaying objects is also creating something in the broadest view to be admired . pondered over and criticised . I feel the displaying of collections is a very pure form of an artist practice and not tied up by conventions. The the urge to collect is never complete or is a fossil collection, in fact a life’s work is to be had by arranging and rearranging  the right objects on a shelve harmoniously pleasing to the eye and mind. 

 

I hope I made some sense and you  don’t mind my take on this. I am very dyslexic I hope you can understand my post.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Hello, Donna, and a very warm welcome to TFF from Morocco. 

I think Jurassic Park has a lot to answer for. 

Not my reason for a lifetime's collecting,though.

[BadlandTraveller]

If you need to interview someone with a chronic financially unhealthy addiction to Cretaceous fossils I'm your guy.

[Kane]

Welcome to the Forum.  

The collection desire is a fascinating realm of inquiry (I out myself in considering insights on that well situated in Marx, Veblen, and Freud  ). 

[flipper559]

Very interesting !! Welcome to the forum !!

[Auspex]

The psychology and sociology of collecting is a fascinating topic, be it Roman glass, bottlecaps, or avian fossils! Untangling the motivations and resulting relationship dynamics is an exciting, if not daunting, undertaking. Define "acquisitive" in 40,000 words or less!

Welcome to the Forum; I hope we can help. 

[Norki]

I think that there has to be a connection between fossil collecting and the gambling urge. You never know what you're going to get when you go out into the field, and being rewarded for your time/effort with a tangible object is a great feeling that makes you crave for your next trip, especially when that reward was not garanteed to begin with. I guess my point is that I don't think that collecting would be as satisfying if there wasn't that aspect of uncertainty to it.

 

(Thankfully for us, indulging the collecting urge is generally a productive and healthy expenditure of energy!)

[jpc]

56 minutes ago, Norki said:

I think that there has to be a connection between fossil collecting and the gambling urge. You never know what you're going to get when you go out into the field, and being rewarded for your time/effort with a tangible object is a great feeling that makes you crave for your next trip, especially when that reward was not garanteed to begin with. I guess my point is that I don't think that collecting would be as satisfying if there wasn't that aspect of uncertainty to it.

 

(Thankfully for us, indulging the collecting urge is generally a productive and healthy expenditure of energy!)

fossils and fishing...same story Norki mentioned.  

 

I am also willing to help from a professional and personal perspective if you need/want.

[Miocene_Mason]

Welcome to the forum from Maryland! 

[FossilNerd]

Hello and welcome! Looking forward to hearing more about your research and participating if needed.  

[DPS Ammonite]

5 hours ago, sharkdoctor said:

Have you had any contact with Bruce McFadden? He had a great NSF grant that was aimed at connecting amateur fossil networks around the US. It is now defunct

Bruce and others tried to create a short term version (MyFOSSIL) of what we have here with several million dollars of grant money using paid and volunteer labor. Peer reviewed papers were produced describing the impact of the website. I think that we created a much more important, dynamic website using much less money. Kudos to our staff and members. 

 

6 hours ago, DonnaY said:

I am here because I have just been awarded a European Research Council grant to study, among other things, the connection that people have to fossils from a sociological point of view.

Here is an interesting article describing Donna’s research:
 

https://www.sccjr.ac.uk/news-events/news/a-fond-farewell-to-dr-donna-yates/

 

I think that interesting paper could be written about comparing and contrasting the impact on MyFOSSIL vs The Fossil Forum. Does more money really create a better product?  
 

Consider contacting directly some of the larger Paleontological societies such as The Dry Dredgers and The Dallas Paleontological Society; they might have some good insight into the subject.

 

Also contact the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences:

https://www.aaps.net/.  AAPS stands for the ethical collecting of fossils that may be used to further scientific knowledge.

 

2 hours ago, Norki said:

I think that there has to be a connection between fossil collecting and the gambling urge

For me there is almost zero gambling urge relating to collecting since their is no financial incentive to collect fossils which cannot be sold from public lands. 

 

Fossil collecting gets you out of doors where you can get some exercise, most importantly. Collecting fossils inspires me to learn more about many science related subjects. Thirdly, collecting feeds my sense of adventure while I hope to find new species.

 

Collecting fossils is like hunting and fishing. I tell most hunters and fishers that I meet that we are doing the same thing: looking for things that we don’t need. They are looking for modern living creatures and I am looking for one that died millions of years ago. We are both looking for a reason to get outdoors.

[Norki]

41 minutes ago, DPS Ammonite said:

For me there is almost zero gambling urge relating to collecting since their is no financial incentive to collect fossils which cannot be sold from public lands. 

Oh yeah, I'm not in it for the money either (and even if I was, I'm also bound by local conservation laws), but my point is that I think the tantalizing aspect is related to the "what if" nature of the hobby. I think it scratches that same fundamental risk/reward itch. To me there's also the emotional fascination of connecting to an organism that lived in the incomprehensible past, I don't think I'll ever stop being amazed by that.

 

(Extra bonus that it also satisfies my need to be outdoors).

[ziggycardon]

Welcome from Tongeren, only a few kilometers away from Maastricht  

I am looking forward to reading about some of your findings, sounds like a very interesting study you're doing. 
Futhermore I really hope you are enjoying Maastricht, one of my favourite cities to visit, I am sure you have already payed a visit to the Natural History Museum in Maastricht, if not, you really should!  

[FossilDAWG]

Welcome to the Fossil Forum, Dr. Yates.

 

If you are interested in what draws people to fossil collecting, I believe you will get a lot of information from our members.

If you are interested in "criminogenic collectibles" I think you will find very little or nothing at all.  We are quite strict about promoting ethical collecting.  Anyone promoting unethical behavior, such as trespassing, theft from protected sites, etc is quickly purged from our group.  On the other hand, we actively promote responsible collaboration between amateur and professional paleontologists.  You can note, for example, the section of the forum titled "Paleo Partners", where we recognize Forum members who have made significant contributions to published research and donations to museum collections.  You will find that the Forum membership includes quite a number of professional paleontologists, and avocational collectors who have co-authored peer reviewed publications or donated material that has become the subject of such publications.  It is impossible for the professional paleontologists to scour every outcrop, or every construction site, but knowledgeable amateurs can be the eyes of the paleontological community, and this is what we try to encourage.  Also, several members regularly volunteer their time in a variety of ways to support local museums, such as by being docents, or helping to curate collections, as two examples.  Some of our members are as knowledgeable as any professional paleontologist in their chosen area of specialization, and that knowledge is freely shared with members of the Forum community.

 

In my own case, my fascination with fossils began over 50 years ago, when as a child living in Germany I picked up ammonite fossils from the gravel in the school playground.  I still have an ammonite I found all those years ago.  Fossils led to a fascination with both geology and biology, which led via a somewhat rambling path to a career as a professor of medical entomology and molecular biology.  Besides providing a focus for days spent in the outdoors (though not enough of them with my many responsibilities), finding a fossil can be in some ways almost a religious experience.  When I find a trilobite on the shore of Weiss Lake, in Alabama, it brings to mind all that has happened in the 500 million years since that was a living animal, crawling on the sea floor.  How the rocks it was encased in were bent and folded as ancient tectonic forces between colliding crustal plates pushed up the Appalachian Mountains.  How those mountains, once as high as the Rockies, eroded down to their roots and provided the sediment that later encased Cretaceous ammonites and mosasaurs as they swam in the warm seas that covered much of southern Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.  I wonder about what went on in evolution in those millennia before trilobites and so many other forms seemingly sprang fully formed into existence.  As a molecular biologist, I am quite aware of the information encoded in genomes, and the window that information provides about even more ancient origins and histories, and for me that is fully integrated with the beauty and wonder of this ancient individual fossil I can hold in my hand.  Seas appearing and disappearing, mountains thrust up and worn down, species evolving, diversifying, and eventually disappearing as they are replaced by yet other species, all of this is brought to mind and unified by these remnants of ancient life that I can actually find, bring home, clean, and identify.  Then there is the mental challenge of learning to identify all these brachiopods, bivalves, gastropods, trilobites, ammonites, plants, and on an on.  It is endless, yet there is much satisfaction in figuring out where a specimen fits in relation to everything else.  Sometimes (rarely) there is the thrill of realizing that something is new, undescribed, and then there is the challenge of finding the right expert to confirm that and (hopefully) collaborate on a publication, so something new can be contributed to science.  This no doubt sounds somewhat pretentious, but I have talked to many fellow collectors and I know many feel the same.

 

There is also the social aspect of paleontology, the joy of sharing the exhilaration of a special find, of sharing one's knowledge, or just of spending time in the company of others who share this unusual fascination. 

 

Anyway, that is just my experience.  I think I have to get back to work now, got some gels to run.

 

Don

[Ludwigia]

Hello Donna. Your appearance here seems to have quickly created a small whirlwind, which is quite sociable in itself, isn't it? It's more than interesting how enthusiasm for a common interest, be it fossils, paleontology or otherwise, can engender camaradery and friendship if it is cultivated in such a way as is done in this forum. I hope that you have the chance to experience this yourself once you become active here. There certainly are enough human and professional threads leading in various directions which can be followed. Also the subject of how people exploit the feelings surrounding objects such as fossils for criminal purposes and how some people are drawn to these illegal objects sounds like an extremely interesting field of research.

Edit: Although I think you'll have to go the more private route here for you to get into detail on it because some of the questions involved with this subject could easily come into conflict with forum policy.

[Mark Kmiecik]

Welcome from Illinois.

[grandpa]

Hi Donna and a cautious welcome to TFF from Austin, Tx

 

I must confess that I have very mixed feelings about being the subject "rat" in a sociological study that I was not asked up front for permission to participate in.  ("Sociology = soft faux science" he says, having a minor in psychology.) 

 

Having said that, I would invite you to consider Skinnerian psychology and the role of the "reward" of the adrenaline rush (an addictive drug/experience, I'm sure ) from finding a new "treasure" as another answer to why we collect fossils.

 

Also, consider that we as Homo sapiens have a long collective history as "hunters/gatherers" imprinted in our collective unconscious (OK, now I've moved to Jungian psychology.  No apologies for this on my part, I find myself to be eclectic in forming my understanding of human behavior.) 

 

But all of this is in the realm of psychology, not sociology, in an attempt to explain why we collect. (BTW, I also agree with ALL of the other motives stated above.  I'm just intending to emphasize a couple that have not been listed.)

 

Your interest as a Socialist I would think, would not be WHY WE COLLECT, as you have stated in your intro; but rather HOW WE INTERACT AS A COMMUNITY of folks who share that common interest of fossil collecting.  As I understand it, you are particularly interested in the dark element of the community.  Am I correct in my understanding?

 

If such is the case, here I must agree with Don:

7 hours ago, FossilDAWG said:

f you are interested in "criminogenic collectibles" I think you will find very little or nothing at all. 

 

I must further say that I am confused by what I perceive to be your basic premise.  It would seem that you have an idea that the motives that drive the "darker side" of fossil collecting are somehow different from the motives that drive the "darker side" of any other group or enterprise and that you want to understand our motives.  Why might you think that "fossil hounds" have significantly different motivations driving nefarious actions than the motivations that drive the general population to nefarious activities:  greed, power, lust, braggadocios, one-up-man-ship, money, maximum reward for minimal energy expenditure (OK, now Darwin), etc.  Are these not among the primary motivators that UNIVERSALLY  drive human non-social behavior? 

 

What might be a more interesting question would be "Is the population of fossil enthusiasts more, less, equally as corrupt as the general population?"  My bet would be "equally".  Why should we be any different from the general population in this aspect?  The only reason that I could postulate off the top of my head would be that fossil enthusiasts as a group have a different  (Higher? Lower?) e.g., IQ, level of education, average level of wealth, etc., than the general population and it is this factor (not enthusiasm for fossils) that would be the root cause of the difference.

 

So, in summary, I'm sorry to say that  - (1) I don't like being a "subject" who wasn't asked to participate just because of my membership in a group. (2) I don't understand (nor believe) why you want to know what drives our interest in fossils. (3) I don't agree with your primary assumption that fossil enthusiasts have a significantly different motivation for the "darker side" (or perhaps are more easily duped by the darker side) than the general population. (4) I think your assumptions are flawed and I have no idea what your experimental design might possibly look like. (5) I don't trust that this entry is for the stated purpose but wonder if it has alternative goals (not at all uncommon for sociological or psychological studies).  In short, the whole thing is heavily weighted with a suspect nature.

 

However, having said all of that, I welcome you to the forum and am ready to be proven wrong and have my concerns disproved.  Come on and win me over.

 

Until then - I raise a red flag to my fellow forum members.

.

[White Feather]

Welcome Donna, just found you on Twitter also (I am Reach The Masses) . I am one of the armature people loving to collect fossils and rocks and found this site to really be full of great people with great answers and way beyond me in knowledge but I am enjoying learning. Congratulations on the grant! We will enjoy reading about how this goes! 

[Randyw]

I’m not worried! LOL! I don’t get to hunt for fossils in the field unfortunately. I’m limited to buying fossils both prepped and unprepared. My fascination with them is that I’m able to touch something so unimaginably old and fragile yet strong at the same time. When I’m preparing a fossil I’m exposing something that has never been seen by another human ever. And yet I’m still humbled by the fact that it was once a living breathing thing that still deserves to be handled carefully and in a way reverently.

as for the darker side of fossil collecting there’s no big secret. They forge or steal or smuggle them for the same reason anyone does. Greed and/or money. The general population of fossil collectors is no more or less honest then the general population. Becuase we are the general population. Everyone collects something or has an interest in something there’s no difference with us. You’ve felt it yourself with your own recent collecting. It’s the discovery and the awe of it.

there now I’ve been a dutiful lab rat where’s my cheese!