The earliest-published recognition of a trace fossil and its producer

Abstract The recognition of fossil material as organic represented a sea change in European understanding of geology. Throughout the Renaissance and Early Modern periods, several thinkers approached the same line of reasoning, from Leonardo da Vinci to Nicolas Steno. Among fossil material, trace fossils are furthest removed from the living organism, and the identification of trace fossils as such is extremely rare in the period, even when body fossils were increasingly being seen as organic. Alongside Leonardo da Vinci, whose personal observations in the early 16th century remained unpublished for centuries, and Ulisse Aldrovandi, whose account of trace fossils was published posthumously in 1648, I here show that Bernard Palissy also recognised the biological origins of at least one form of trace fossil. The publication of Palissy’s identification occurred in 1580, 68 years before Aldrovandi’s was published, and 23 years before the manuscript on which that publication was based. Moreover, like Aldrovandi, Palissy’s recognition includes specific identification of the trace as being produced by pholad molluscs. Palissy’s is therefore the oldest example of an ichnological identification to be found in the published literature.