Fossils have been discovered exposed naturally by erosion. I don't see any reason to assume that if someone had seen that 400 years ago they couldn't "conceptualize" what the creature that skeleton came from might look like just as well as someone today might.
You seem terribly impressed with the detail of their knowlege of the subject, which I find puzzling since we've never seen one. That means we really don't know how accurate that depiction really is.
“You seem terribly impressed with the detail of their knowlege of the subject, which I find puzzling since we’ve never seen one. That means we really don’t know how accurate that depiction really is.”
Seems they are pretty accurate depictions of dinosaurs from comic books.
you obviously have not read nr researched the point.