Joan Wiffen – Heritage scientist timeline

Tributes came in from around the world when Joan Wiffen died in 2009. Alongside colleague Ralph Molnar, Joan identified and published on the first dinosaur fossils in New Zealand. Joan rewrote the way we understand the country’s past. Joan achieved this fame as an amateur scientist, not a professional. She received numerous honours and awards, wrote scientific publications and popular books and had a documentary film made about her life. Yet all this only happened in the later part of her life.

Rights: Lloyd Homer, GNS Science

Joan Wiffen, palaeontologist

Joan Wiffen (1922–2009) was a palaeontologist who studied the Cretaceous period in New Zealand. Joan discovered one of the first dinosaur fossils in New Zealand.

These were priceless treasures from the past – and, suddenly, I was hooked. I knew what I wanted – to collect fossils.

Joan Wiffen

Joan’s early life was typical of many women born in the 1920s. Her parents saw no need for further education, so Joan left school and worked as a clerk, got married, brought up two children and helped her husband on their small farm.

Rights: The University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato

Pterosaur fossil

In 1988 Joan Wiffen published a co-authored paper on the first pterosaur fossil found in New Zealand. The ulna bone was found at Mangahouanga by Trevor Crabtree. The pterosaur fossil is held in GNS Science’s National Paleontology Collection.

It wasn’t until 1972 that a growing interest in rocks and fossils led Joan and her family to visit a remote valley in north-west Hawke’s Bay. Over more than 35 years, the Mangahuoanga Stream yielded many land and marine fossils from the Late Cretaceous period, including dinosaurs.

Rights: NZPA/John Cowpland

Joan Wiffen

Joan Wiffen was an example of a citizen scientist – someone who pursues science as a hobby rather than an occupation. Anyone can be a scientist provided they follow scientific protocols.

Acknowledgement: NZPA/John Cowpland
Content provided by NZPA and its licensors is their intellectual property. Any copying, republication or redistribution of that content (in whole or in part), including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without NZPA’s prior written consent.

With no formal scientific training, Joan learnt by experience – how to spot fossils, how to extract them from very hard rock, how to identify them and how to use the fossils to put together a picture of ancient New Zealand. She enlisted the help of dinosaur experts abroad (there were none in this country at the time) to carry out identifications and present findings in scientific journals and at conferences. To start with, being a woman with no scientific qualifications was a real drawback, so Joan concentrated on the fossils and their meaning, and gradually, she became accepted by the professional community. Her willingness to communicate her work to children and the general public also made her widely known. Joan ended up having more widespread recognition than most professional scientists.

The timeline below lets you see aspects of Joan's life and work, and how her findings changed scientific thinking. A full timeline transcript is here.

Joan Wiffen – paleontologist

• Changing scientific ideas
• Advances in science and technology
• Biography

Joan Wiffen – paleontologist

This timeline lets you see aspects of Joan's life and work, and how these fit into a wider science picture of paleontology. A full transcript is underneath.