Unearthing the Dragon

Here is the book that establishes the revolution in dinosaur science that has occurred in our generation. Dinosaurs are no longer thought of as lizards so much as birds. The transformation can be seen from the first Jurassic Park movie to the recent reconstructions in the BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs in America, where they appear as warm blooded and feathered, attending their young and brooding their nests. This transformation in popular culture is based on excavations at one profoundly important site in China: Liaoning. Here, told by the leading U.S. researcher who has been to the site, Mark Norrell, is the definitive story of that discovery.

Unearthing the Dragon is also a highly personalized account of being in a foreign land with a very different history of science, culture, and everyday social behavior. Fossils are often collected by peasants, not researchers. Local officials are often more swayed by noble and vigorous drinking sessions than reasoned argument. Photographer Mick Ellison gets into various kinds of trouble as Norrell navigates the pair forward through a strange world–and leads readers to a magical world of feathered dinosaurs revealed in the Liaoning formation.

About the Author

MARK NORELL is the Chair and Curator, Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History. He has published extensively in academic journals, including one on the feathered T. Rex in Nature in the fall of 2004, and his research has been frequently reported in national media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Morning Edition on NPR, BBC stations, Scientific American, and Discover.