Article citation tracking I am trying to find the origin of an idea based on journal articles.

To elaborate more:

Let's say object A affects object B in a certain manner and this was originally discovered by Researcher A a long time ago, say in the 1960s. 

Subsequently, until now, there are many variations of studies around the idea that object A affects object B. Many journal articles revolving around this central idea have been published.

My dilemma is:

I do not know who (i.e. Researcher A) or which was the original paper published regarding this idea.  Is there any facility/journal resources that allow me to track the origin of this particular idea? Does Scopus have such a citation tracking ability?
There are no such online databases that could track down origins of ideas. To understand why a citation is used you have to read the paper. To get to the bottom of an idea you might have to follow several pathes of citations.