Dig It: China Evolves

The Chinese economy is expanding at a breakneck pace. The World Bank recently raised the nation's 2007 GDP growth forecast to 10.4%--meaning that China is soon to displace Germany as the world's third largest economy. From 2005 to 2006, per capita GDP expanded by 17%. As a result of China's manufacturing boom, that most populous of nations will emit more carbon dioxide than the United States sometime this year.

The results of Chinese industrialization roughly parallel the British experience of nearly two centuries ago. According to economic historian Paul Bairoch's calculation, from the beginning to the end of the 19th century, per capita levels of industrialization grew by 6.25 times in the United Kingdom, so that the United States was only 69% as industrialized in 1900, and Germany, 52%. Although Britain's average rate of economic growth through the 19th century pales in comparison to modern China's, the effects of both industrial revolutions on their respective societies and the rest of the world are equally phenomenal.

From 1813 to 1870, with the advent of mechanization and destruction of trade barriers, imports of cotton fabrics into India grew from 1 to 995 million yards. Historian Paul Kennedy writes, "Not only did [the 3rd world's share] of total world manufacturing shrink relatively, simply because the West's output was rising so swiftly; but in some cases [3rd world] economies declined absolutely, that is they de-industrialized, because of the penetration of their traditional markets by the far cheaper and better products of the Lancashire textile factories."

Today, Chinese products are flooding into 1st world markets, driving most of the West's domestic manufacturers abroad. America's largest export is shipping containers. Besides some service sector jobs, the segments of 1st world economies that do not possess a technological or educational advantage are being outsourced to the developing world. One can only imagine the effects of modern free trade policy and low shipping costs if they were dropped into the 19th century--the wealth disparity between Europe and the rest of the world would invariably have widened.

China also echoes Britain in the consumption of raw materials and fossil fuels. According to Kennedy, "Around 1860, which was probably when the country reached its zenith in relative terms, the United Kingdom produced 53 percent of the world's iron and 50 percent of its coal and lignite, and consumed just under half of the raw cotton output of the globe. ... Its energy consumption from modern sources (coal, lignite, oil) in 1860 was five times that of either the United States or Prussia/Germany, six times that of France, and 155 times that of Russia!" Manufacturing societies rely heavily on fossil fuels. Using 2005 statistics, a simple calculation informs the reader that China generates 422 dollars worth of GDP per ton of greenhouse gases emitted, while the United States generates 2111 dollars per ton.







Industrialization is not only reflected in exports and coal consumption, but also in the development of paleontology. In the early 19th century, the developing nations of the West invested heavily in the construction of canals. The Somerset Coal Company was a private canal investor in Britain. To plot potential routes for its waterways, the company sent William Smith to survey the countryside. After examining many different locations, he realized that certain fossils are associated with specific strata. Smith's discovery of index fossils was directly consequent of Britain's industrial revolution--and plays an important role in petroleum geology to this day. Another example that incontrovertibly demonstrates the connection between industrialization and paleontology was the 1878 discovery of 33 Iguanodon skeletons in a Belgian coal mine.

Another aspect of paleontology linked to the growth of a manufacturing society is the emergence of private fossil hunting. In early Victorian England, Mary Anning was such a collector. Combing the beach marls of the resort town of Lyme Regis, Anning harvested a variety of fossils, including ammonites and spectacular icthyosaur specimens, and sold them to vacationers and scholars. Paleontologist Christopher McGowan comments that commercial collecting is an essential service for academics, both then and now. Due to the expansion of the middle class through industrialization, the requisite economic largesse needed for the development of scholastic professions, and the thick manufacturing-related pollution that drove Londoners to the coasts, private fossil collecting arose in 19th century Britain. The fossils unearthed as a result of this phenomenon played an important role in Darwin's construction of evolutionary theory.

Quarrymen were some of the most numerous British fossil collectors, and remain a critical paleontological resource. (In three days, I will be examining evidence of the Cambrian transition of animal life from the ocean to land in rocks excavated from a quarry.) The workers found that fossil collecting was a worthwhile pursuit to supplement their incomes. Many Chinese have come to the same realization today.

China is a hotspot of paleontology. In the last 25 years, foreigners have been granted greater access to China, and the Chinese are able to interact more with the rest of the world. Spectacular fossil localities have been recognized, and paleontologists are pouring in to explore them. Two of the best assemblages are Chengjiang and Liaoning. Paleontologist Michael Benton writes, "The Chengjiang site is rich, having produced more than 10,000 specimens, and the fauna consists of 90 or more species, mainly of arthropods (trilobites and trilobite-like forms), sponges, brachiopods, worms, and other groups, including possible basal deuterostomes, such as the vetulicolians and yunnanozoons, as well as the first fishes." Liaoning has produced bird fossils with easily discernible feather impressions, the oldest known metatherian, and a large collection of other animals and plants. A domestic establishment of paleontologists has bloomed in China to uncover and interpret these finds.

The introduction of modern technology into China allows amateur collectors to sell specimens over the internet. This is an extremely lucrative side-job--so much so that many Chinese fabricate fossils. For example, in 2000, amateur American collectors paid $80,000 for a "missing link" between the dinosaurs and birds which turned out to be an amalgamation of avian specimens. Fake fossils now represent the biggest catagory of sham goods on E-Bay. Evolutionary biologist Alan Feduccia has even heard that there is a fake-fossil factory in Liaoning province. Humorously, the problem of fraudulent fossils also existed in 19th century British paleontology. The deceitful collector Thomas Hawkings sold a collection of doctored ichthyosaurs to the British Museum for top dollar. When the falsification was uncovered, a scandal was unleashed that resulted in an inquiry by the House of Commons.

China's evolution into a manufacturing society is oddly similar to Britain's transition nearly 200 years ago. An interesting parallel lies in the emergence of paleontology with each nation's industrial revolution. Hopefully, the field will fill a new role by providing insight into the future of a warming world.