Day: April 8, 2024

Which was the first stone? It might be the typical question of a curious child, but it is a question that changed 18th century ideas and our understanding of the world.

For the Neptunists, the answer was granite. They considered it to be the oldest stone, the first stone of creation.

However, James Hutton challenged this notion. Not only did he refute the idea of granite as the primordial stone, but he also found in rocks a window into the past. Observing rocky landscapes, he realised that the Earth had an ancient and dynamic history, where “we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end”.

How did he do it? What secrets do the rocks hold that led him to this revelation? Keep reading or listening to our podcast “Historias de la Prehistoria” to find our more!