Book Review: The Dinosaur Artist

THE DINOSAUR ARTIST

By Paige Williams

Hatchette, NY, 2018. 410 pp (278 text, 132 endnotes, index, etc.)


This much-praised book opens a window into a world those of us in the general dinosaur-aficionado community don’t know much about: the trade in illegally or quasi-legally trafficked fossils.  Fossil prices have gone through the roof, so the average hobbyist has to save a long time to afford a small T. rex tooth ($2,499.00 as of today on eBay) in a market full of fakes.   Williams explains how this situation arose, including the effect of movie stars like DeCaprio and Cage bidding huge sums for theropod skulls. 






Williams’ centerpiece is the famous case in which American fossil hunter/dealer Eric Prokopi went to jail for selling a Tarbosaurus bataar (a close relation to T. rex) shipped out of Mongolia with deceptive documents.  The main text begins and ends with Eric's story.
Williams takes us on long treks through the Mongolian desert, including the famed Flaming Cliffs site, where Roy Chapman Andrews and associates found the first confirmed dinosaur eggs almost a hundred years ago.  She also takes us through changing Mongolian politics and through the lives of Propokpi and his many associates.  We get to know people like the pioneering Mongolian paleontologist, Bolortsetseg Minjin, a woman who did more than anyone to make Mongolian fossils a national resource rather than an easily plundered source of “art” for auction in New York or horse-trading in the famed Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. (Williams emphasizes that the large majority of people and transactions at this show (now on my bucket list) are legitimate, but some strange things happen.)
The book also explores a never-ending source of tension in fossil hunting. One one side are the professional paleontologists, who prize documenting fossils in place before removal so they can visualize not jsut the dinosaur but its world. On the other are private fossil hunters, who are accused of taking fossils out of the vital context of location and strata and defend themselves by arguing they save many fossils that would otherwise be destroyed by weathering or development (both statements are true, but rarely so at the same time in the same dig site, so the tension's not going to end). Customs and other law enforcement personnel struggle to handle affairs involving changing laws, artifacts most of them know little about, and impossible-to-establish provenance (no one can match a fossil to a precise location once it’s been removed).

It’s all exhaustively researched and documented and end-noted. Williams clearly went to enormous lengths to unearth personal stories and the scientific, commercial, and legal context for them.

The generally sterling prose includes some odd bits. Williams’ seemingly pointless one-time effort at a phonetic rendering of a heavy Southern accent took me out of the story, as did the execrable mutant verb “centerpieced.”  The whole book doesn’t quite flow for me, as the side topics made me lose the main thread a couple of times. Don't forget to read the endnotes through: like post-credits scenes in Marvel movies, they hold some fascinating nuggets.  

On balance, it's a terrific book. So safari hats off to Williams for taking us on this journey.