Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Vin Morgan
Dinosaurs & Gunboats
Walter Granger and the Central
Asiatic Expeditions
Walter Willis Granger
Haynes, Granger, Morgan
(Randolph Center, Rutland, Middletown Springs)
• 18721941
• b. Middletown Springs, Vermont
• d. Lusk, Wyoming
• 18901941, AMNH career
Walter Granger
• 1890 – leaves Rutland, VT, at age 17 and becomes an apprentice taxidermist
at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
• 1894 – makes first expedition to the American West, as a mammals and birds
collector attached to a fossil hunting party.
• 1896 – transfers into the newly department of vertebrate paleontology. The
expedition is to the San Juan Basin of New Mexico. Visits Richard Wetherill
and the newly discovered Anasazi ruins at Chaco Canyon.
• 1897 – discovers Bone Cabin Quarry, a rich dinosaur locality near Medicine
Bow, Wyoming.
• 1903 – weds Anna Deane Granger (first cousins).
• 1906 – begins collecting in the Eocene for the study of evolution.
• 1907 – becomes the first paleontologist to collect overseas, in the Fayum of
Egypt.
• 1908 – resumes Eocene work in the basins of Wyoming and New Mexico.
• 191112 – is among the first American paleontologists to visit with
paleontologists in Europe. Sets up a fossil exchange program.
• 1921 – heads for China as chief scientist and secondincommand of the
Central Asiatic Expeditions. Opens Zhoukoudian with J.G. Andersson.
Walter Granger
• 192122 (cont’d) – makes first winterlong expedition to Yangtze basin area
of Sichuan Province. Witnesses battle for Ichang and other encounters.
• 1922 – makes first expedition to the Mongolias. Finds abundance of fossil
beds within days, both dinosaur and mammal. Finds Protoceratops,
Baluchitherium, and eggshell fragment later confirmed as dinosaur.
• 192223 – returns to the Yangtze for the winter. Takes Anna. Both trapped in
warlord maneuvers for Wanxian. Escape and then ambushed along the river.
• 192330 – makes four more summer long trips into the Mongolias and two
more winter long trips into the Yangtze basin. Returns to the States twice.
• 1931 – final return to States. Assumes increased administrative and publishing
duties. Serves as president of the Explorers Club. Resumes annual field trips to
the American West.
Anna Granger
18741952
Fayum of Egypt Expedition, 1907––
Tethys Sea, PreNile, Lake
Moeris, Bar Yusuf Canal
Teddy Roosevelt
Richard Markgraf
Oligocene: Arsinotherium, Moeritherium
Paleomastodon, Phiomia, Zeuglodonts, primates
Wonders of the internet:
search “Markgraf”
Richard Markgraf
with his daughter
Leopoldine
Henry Osborn’s Map, 1900
?18991900?
1907 AMNH Fayum Expedition
with HFO, WG and GO
Tin Containers
1907Fayum
1922Mongolia
Prince Scipione Borghese
Ettore Guizzardi
Luigi Barzini
Peking to Paris Race, 1907
CAE Mongolia
1922
1923 collecting party
1925…+
CAE Mongolia, 1925
CAE Mongolia, 1928
CAE Mongolia, 1930
CAE Fieldwork, Mongolia
Weather
Some finds:
Mongolia
Some Finds
Earth’s largest land mammal:
Baluchitherium, now Paraceratherium
1923 & 1925, Flaming Cliffs 1930
Sichuan Province…Yangtze
Pleistocene epoch: The period from about 2,000,000 years ago to about 11,500 years ago and
covers the world’s most recent period of repeated glaciations. It is associated with the Ice Age, a
period of lower temperatures,resulting in an expansion of ice sheets and glaciers.
Fauna: Both marine and continental faunas were essentially modern. Severe climatic changes
during the Ice Age had major impacts on the fauna and flora. The positions of the continents was
essentially as it is today. With each advance of ice, large areas of continents became totally
depopulated. Plants and animals retreating southward in front of advancing glaciers faced
tremendous stress from drastic climatic changes, reduced living space, and curtailed food supply.
A major extinction of large mammals (megafauna), which included the mammoth, mastodon,
sabertoothed cat, glyptodon, ground sloth, and shortfaced bear, began in the Pleistocene.
Humans: Humans evolved into their present form during the Pleistocene. Neanderthals became
extinct during this period, as did early human ancestors.
Megataprius augustus
(Tapir)
Stegodon orientalis
(Proboscidea)
1921, ZhoukoudianPeking Man
Conclusion
The End