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| Round Silver Watch Photo by Jimmy Chan from Pexels |
Chase Pipes, artifact and fossil collector, is also the co-owner of Smoky Mountain Relic Room based in Sevierville, Tennessee. Through this venture, Chase Pipes hopes to make history, paleontology, and archaeology more accessible to the public.
The three disciplines no longer belong to the same esoteric group of scholars nor are their importance less relevant in a day and age when technology seems to be moving humanity into an unknown future. Paleontology, archeology, and history are intertwined disciplines that have explained (and in some cases exposed) the human narrative since the beginning of time.
The three are very different disciplines, but when they work in unison, they highlight the beauty of academia. Paleontology focuses primarily on animal fossils-mostly dinosaurs-and also researches the evolution of animal species. Archaeology focuses on human artifacts and fossils. However, the information in these records of ancient animals and human life is chronicled through history because history is the narrative that explains all of these discoveries.
Two major finds illustrate the importance and intersection of all three disciplines. The first relates to a find that happened almost 30 years ago in California. Archaeologists found evidence of humans that existed more than 130,000 years, but a paleontologist was called to the scene because the Department of Transportation policy mandates this expertise at a find this big. The information did not resurface until years ago, but it highlights the existence of humans in the Americas. With additional evidence, archaeologist and paleontologists could support the argument that human existence stretched farther than ever imagined. More importantly, it rewrites the prehistoric narrative.
Probably the most significant find that illustrates the importance of the intersection among the three disciplines is the KT Boundary. Researchers in the last few years have studied the cataclysmic asteroid that destroyed the Earth, poisoning and killing everything, separating the Cretaceous Period from the Tertiary Period, and resulting in the KT Boundary. Studying this area will bring researchers closer to many answers, but more importantly, if the answers are found, they will shed light on human genesis and evolution.
