This project tells the story behind the exhumation of the remains of mammals and birds exterminated around 1800 and the competing endeavors to secure these skeletons for European and American collections. This is the story of how the search for these skeletons created a new scientific space: the rubbish dump, the repository par excellence of evidence of historical extinction, evidence that was shaped by the emergence of various new disciplines and areas of expertise: archaeology, paleontology, and the reintegration of recent rubbish into the economic circuits of the contemporary world.
This project links to my previous work on fossil and animal dealers from South America and it connects not only to the history of zoological collections in the long nineteenth century but also to questions that are related to the history of the use and transforming values of what is defined as “animal byproducts.”