The first English translation of Johannes Weigelt's 1927 classic
makes available the seminal work in taphonomy, the study of how
organisms die, decay, become entombed in sediments, and fossilize
over time. Weigelt emphasized the importance of empirical work and
made extensive observations of modern carcasses on the Texas Gulf
Coast. He applied the results to evidence from the fossil record
and demonstrated that an understanding of the postmortem fate of
modern animals is crucial to making sound inferences about fossil
vertebrate assemblages and their ecological communities. Weigelt
spent sixteen months on the Gulf Coast in the mid-1920s, gathering
evidence from the carcasses of cattle and other animals in the
early stages of preservation. This book reports his observations.
He discusses death and decomposition; classifies various modes of
death (drowning, cold, dehydration, fire, mud, quicksand, oil
slicks, etc.); documents and analyzes the positions of carcasses;
presents detailed data on carcass assemblages at the Smither's Lake
site in Texas; and, in a final chapter, makes comparisons to
carcass assemblages from the geologic past. He raises questions
about whether much of the fossil record is a product of unusual
events and, if so, what the implications are for paleoecological
studies. The English edition of Recent Vertebrate Carcasses
includes a foreword and a translator's note that comment on
Weigelt's life and the significance of his work. The original
bibliography has been brought up to date, and, where necessary,
updated scientific and place names have been added to the text in
brackets. An index of names, places, and subjects is included, and
Weigelt's own photographs of carcasses and drawings of skeletons
illustrate the text.
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