Title: Wonderful society: the Burgess Shale creatures, Mandara polities, and the nature of prehistory
Abstract: High in the Canadian Rockies of Yoho National Park lie outcrops of early Cambrian shale that contain the fossils of creatures as exotically named – Ayesheaia, Wiwaxia, Anomalocaris, Hallucigenia – as they are themselves fantastic and, indeed, out of this world. They have, as Stephen J.Gould (1989) proclaims in the book from which our title is derived, changed our view of life, for, despite the small numbers of species represented, they are more disparate – more varied at the level of phylum and class – than the "entire spectrum of invertebrate life in today's oceans" (p.25), a spectrum now characterized by profligate diversification of a restricted number of classes.
Publication Year: 1999
Publication Date: 1999-06-10
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 11
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