Paleorrota - History

History

Sources: UFSM (Romeu Beltrão) and UFRGS.

The research began with fossils in Santa Maria with the geographer and professor Antero de Almeida, in 1901, when the first fossils found in the Sanga da Alemoa. Antero de Almeida, also found the Paleontological Site Chiniquá, later visited by German paleontologist Friedrich von Huene.

In 1902, Dr. Jango Fischer, born in Santa Maria, collected fossils in the Sanga da Alemoa and sent to Prof. Dr. Hermann von Ihering, then director of the Museu Paulista in São Paulo. Three vertebral bodies were nearly complete, a fragment of a vertebra, one finger and four phalanges and ungual phalanx alone. The material was sent to Arthur Smith Woodward, the eminent paleontologist of the British Museum in London to study, which resulted in the determination of the first terrestrial reptile fossil in South America, the Rhynchosaur was given the name Scaphonyx fischeri, in honor of Jango Fischer.

So the international scientific attention has focused on Santa Maria, leading to a series of scientific expeditions.

In the years 1915 to 1917, Dr. Guilherme Rau, a German who now reside in Santa Maria in 1900, helped the German scientist Dr. H. Lotz of the Geological Survey of Berlin, and collected 200 fossils in the Sanga da Alemoa. This material was sent to Von Huene in Germany in 1924. During this time a boy of 14 years, Atílio Munari, who lived near the Sanga da Alemoa, began to live with the scientist H. Lotz, who taught him to collect and prepare the fossils. Many of the fossils collected by him, are now in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Santa Maria.

Llewellyn Ivor Price, was born in Santa Maria, and completed his studies at Harvard University, USA. He returned to Santa Maria in 1936, bringing along his colleague Theodore E. White. Both contacted Munari that helped them in their excavations of fossils.

In 1925, Santa Maria and São Pedro do Sul, were visited by the German paleontologist Dr. Bruno von Freyberg, University of Halle-Wittenberg. That same year Dr. G. Florence and Pacheco, members of the Commission geological and geographical, of São Paulo were in Paleorrota. Everything that happened this season influenced Vicentino Prestes de Almeida, born Chiniquá (1900), to become a paleontologist. A jaw discovered by him, and sent to Germany, it influenced Von Huene to make a visit to Brazil. Prestosuchus is named after a Vicentino Prestes de Almeida.

In 1927, the geologists Paulino Franco de Carvalho and Nero Passos, come to Santa Maria. This year also comes the geologist Alex Löfgren, who came here a year and a half helped by Munari.

In 1928 comes the German Friedrich von Huene, accompanied by Dr. Rudolf Stahlecker. They were six months collecting in the Sanga da Alemoa and then stayed two months in Chiniquá. In the ten-month period they made several stratigraphic observations of many municipalities. They returned to Germany with many tons of fossils. Many fossils collected by Friedrich von Huene are at the University of Tübingen, Germany.

During this period, Tupi Caldas describes the Dinodontosaurus pedroanum e Hyperodapedon mariensis.

Cerritosaurus was collected in 1941 by Jesuit Antonio Binsfeld, in the Sanga da Alemoa in Santa Maria.

In the 1940s and 50’s various expeditions organized by Llewellyn Ivor Price, of the Department of Palaeontology of the National Department of Mineral Production in Rio de Janeiro, arriving in the region. Price has worked in the area along with Edwin Harris Colbert, Carlos de Paula Couto, Mackenzie Gondon, Fausto Luís de Souza Cunha and Theodore E. White. In Santa Maria, Price was staying at Colégio Centenário.

In 1947, Ney Vidal and Carlos de Paula Couto, working at the National Museum of Brazil, were collecting fossils in the region. In 1955 prof. Irajá Damiani Pinto (UFRGS), made collections of fossils in Paleorrota.

Dr. Romeu Beltrão, who in 1951 collected material was sent to the National Museum of Brazil. Subsequently the fossils was studied by Carlos de Paula Couto.

From the year 1956 Father Daniel Cargnin, which has enriched many museums, such as Museum Vincente Pallotti, Museum Daniel Cargnin, UFRGS and PUCRS. He worked with Mário Costa Barberena (UFRGS) and he collected more than 50 skulls. He was a paleontologist, who collected about 80% of the fossils that are in museums in the region.

From the 1960s, with the creation of the School of Geology (UFRGS), and subsequently their postgraduate courses, the geological mapping of Paleorrota received large increase, as well as paleontological knowledge of sedimentary rocks found there.

In the 70 and 80, in São Pedro do Sul, Walter Ilha, a paleontologist has collected fossils in the region. Collected bibliographies, books and magazines on the subject. He fought to build a museum in his hometown. In 1987 he died, and the museum acquired the name of Museum Paleontologic and Archaeological Walter Ilha.

In Paleorrota, paleontology began with amateur paleontologists. Later we had the arrival of several foreign paleontologists, who contributed with their research and teaching of paleontology drove in our universities and schools. Throughout this period the research of the amateurs were usually made with their own financial resources.