Over 2,000 volunteers, drawn from professions spanning management, cleaning, and tattoo artistry, are dedicating their unpaid labor to meticulously restore the skeleton of a Mastodonsaurus at Warsaw’s Copernicus Science Center. This massive aquatic predator, unearthed in southern Poland 3 years ago, represents the first nearly complete and well-preserved Mastodonsaurus skeleton ever found.
These workers, none of them geologists or paleontologists by trade, chip away at rock encasing the ancient bones. They use chisels, brushes, and protective goggles in a glass-walled laboratory, their efforts visible to visitors. The meticulous process involves separating bone from rock millimeter by millimeter with pneumatic chisels, guided by ultraviolet light.
Tatyana Kozyk, who coordinates the volunteer teams, described the profound experience of being “the first human on earth to touch them” after the bones lay underground for 240 million years. Volunteers receive training and special gear before their two-hour chiseling sessions, all under expert supervision.
The restored skeleton, weighing 1,300 kilograms (2,865 pounds) and nearly six meters (20 feet) long, will become the largest exhibited in any museum globally, according to Tomasz Sulej, a paleontologist and professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Sulej and Wojciech Pawlak from Warsaw University's Faculty of Geology discovered the skeleton 3 years ago and conceived the volunteer-driven restoration.
Sulej noted the unique structure of this Mastodonsaurus, different from previously known specimens found in Germany and Russia, which were significantly smaller, around 2 to 3 meters (6½ to 10 feet) long. This discovery promises new information for the scientific world, offering insights into a species that lived 240 million years ago, before dinosaurs dominated Earth.
Collective Labor Unearths History
Dorota Serafin, a 51-year-old manager from Warsaw, finds the work “relaxing and philosophical, even mystical,” and plans to continue her sessions. Her participation, alongside hundreds of others, highlights the collective human capacity for scientific endeavor when not driven by the demands of capital.
Science Beyond Profit
The Copernicus Science Center, a public institution, facilitates this extensive project, relying on the donated time and skill of thousands. This model stands in stark contrast to the typical private sector where such extensive labor would be commodified, its value extracted for private profit rather than contributing to shared scientific knowledge.
Nature's Resilience, Systemic Blindness
Sulej also offered a reflection on climate change, stating that the Mastodonsaurus’s survival after a great extinction shows “nature always manages.” He asserted, “It’s not true that humans can destroy life on this planet. Nature and life always find ways to survive.” This perspective, while offering a form of hope, sidesteps the structural economic forces that accelerate environmental destruction and the specific human populations most vulnerable to its immediate effects.
The project’s participants, including Sulej, suggest contact with the Mastodonsaurus provides an opportunity to reflect on both past and future. The exhibition of the restored skeleton is expected in October or November, making this collective effort accessible to the public.