Lesotho: Fossil Science Owes a Debt to Indigenous Knowledge – Lesotho Missionary’s Notes Tell the Story

For over a century, the scientific literature has credited western missionaries with “discovering” fossils in Lesotho, the small, mountainous country surrounded by South Africa.

The narrative typically begins with figures like the French missionary Hermann Dieterlen, who, in 1885, reported unusual “petrified bird tracks” near the settlement of Morija. This account implies that earth sciences like the study of rocks and fossils arrived in Lesotho from Europe.

In contrast, our research supports the…