When I was a six year old dinosaur freak, I was convinced that a beautifully-preserved, fully articulated Triceratops skeleton lay buried in my grandparents backyard. I can’t say why I thought this. It was more of a fantasy than anything else, but I believed that if I just dug down deep enough I would make one of the greatest fossil discoveries of all time. The American Museum of Natural History would no doubt be so thrilled with my find that they would put it in their museum and appoint me as curator of their dinosaur hall. All I had to do was dig the thing up.

I spent a number of sunny summer Saturdays hacking away at a little dirt depression