Mayor, A. 2005. Fossil legends of the first Americans. – Princeton, Princeton University Press

Abstract

“The burnt–red badlands of Montana's Hell Creek are a vast graveyard of the Cretaceous dinosaurs that lived 68 million years ago. Those hills were, much later, also home to the Sioux, the Crows, and the Blackfeet, the first people to encounter the dinosaur fossils exposed by the elements. What did Native Americans make of these stone skeletons, and how did they explain the teeth and claws of gargantuan animals no one had seen alive? Did they speculate about their deaths? Did they collect fossils?” (Source: cover of ’Fossil legends of the first Americans’).

Adrienne Mayor is an independent scholar who writes about the scientific and historical realities embedded within myths. Her book ‘The first fossil hunters. Palaeontology in Greek and Roman times’(2000) was one of the first modern books to combine folklore and palaeontology. In this book Mayor describes how large fossil bones from extinct creatures were discovered and interpreted in ancient Greece and Rome. She pinpoints similarities between extinct fossilised animal remains and mythical creatures found in Greek and Roman mythology. For instance, the similarities between the mythical griffin and Protoceratops, a dinosaur found in the Gobi desert, are highlighted. Read more...