Elephant or Cyclops? The Mistaken Identity of Animal Bones - Animals 59

From dragons, to unicorns and Divine Chickens, this episode is all about mythological creatures and how they may (or may not) have been inspired by fossilised remains of extinct species. Our friend Pliny the Elder makes an appearance once again, along with a peculiar extinct giraffe species.

Transcripts

• Segment 1

• Segment 2

• Segment 3

Links and Sources

• Bressan, D. (2012) Early Paleoart: Of Prehistoric Monsters and Men. Scientific American.

• Bressan, D. (2019) Nineteenth-Century Fossil Discoveries Influence Sea Serpent Reports. Forbes.

• Christen, A. G., & Christen, J. A. (2011). The unicorn and the narwhal: a tale of the tooth. Journal of the History of Dentistry, 59(3), 135-142.

• Duffin, C. J., & Davidson, J. P. (2011). Geology and the dark side. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, 122(1), 7-15.

• Edmonds, P. (2018). The bunyip as uncanny rupture: Fabulous animals, innocuous quadrupeds and the Australian anthropocene. Australian Humanities Review, 63, 80-98.

• Hand, W.D. (2021). Magical Medicine: The Folkloric Component of Medicine in the Folk Belief, Custom, and Ritual of the Peoples of Europe and America. University of California Press. p. 298.

• Mayor, A. and Heaney, M. (1993). "Griffins and Arimaspeans". Folklore. 104 (1–2): 40.

• Mayor, A. (2005). Fossil Legends of the First Americans. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

• Mayor, A. (2011). The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times. Princeton University Press.

• McDaniel, S. (2020) Were Mythical Creatures Inspired by Fossils? Tales of Time Forgotten.

• Pappas, S. (2017) Cyclops and Dragon Tongues: How Real Fossils Inspired Giant Myths. LiveScience.

• Stothers, R. B. (2004). Ancient scientific basis of the “Great Serpent” from historical evidence. Isis, 95(2), 220-238.

• Witton, M.P. (2016) Why Protoceratops almost certainly wasn't the inspiration for the griffin legend. Mark P. Witton’s Blog.

• Xing, L., Mayor, A., Chen, Y., Harris, J. D., & Burns, M. E. (2011). The folklore of dinosaur trackways in China: Impact on Paleontology. Ichnos, 18(4), 213-220.

Contact

• Alex FitzpatrickTwitter: @archaeologyfitz

• Simona FalangaTwitter: @CrazyBoneLady

• Alex’s Blog: Animal Archaeology

• Music "Coconut - (dyalla remix)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UiKoouqaY

Affiliates

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