The foundation of paleontology as a science dates back to the work of Georges Cuvier in 1796.
Notes on verification
Multiple independent scholarly and encyclopedic sources corroborate Cuvier's 1796 paper on elephant/mammoth species as foundational to paleontology, though publication date is sometimes cited as 1800 due to delayed formal publication.
Sources
- Paleontology (en.wikipedia.org)
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309321774_Georges_Cuvier_and_establishment_of_the_paleontology_as_a_science (researchgate.net)
- https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2015/10/proving-extinction-cuvier-and-the-elephantimorpha (blog.biodiversitylibrary.org)
- http://scihi.org/georges-cuvier/ (scihi.org)