eli5: Why were dinosaurs discovered so late? Really no one before the 19th century came across with one fossil?

Question

It really baffles me that non of the great minds before that period knew they existed

In: Biology

Answer 1

Megalosaurus is believed to be the first dinosaur ever described scientifically. British fossil hunter William Buckland found some fossils in 1819, and he eventually described them and named them in 1824.

That doesn’t mean we didn’t find them earlier, they just aren’t documented scientifically in older materials.