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Big Bone Lick: The Cradle of American Paleontology
Shawnee legend tells of a herd of huge bison rampaging through the Ohio Valley, laying waste to all in their path. To protect the tribe, a deity slew these great beasts with lightning bolts, finally chasing the last giant buffalo into exile across the Wabash River, never to trouble the Shawnee again. The source of this legend was a peculiar salt lick in present-day northern Kentucky, where giant fossilized skeletons had for centuries lain undisturbed by the Shawnee and other natives of the region. In 1739, the first Europeans encountered this fossil site, which eventually came to be known as Big Bone Lick. The site drew the attention of all who heard of it, including George Washington, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and especially Thomas Jefferson. The giant bones immediately cast many scientific and philosophical assumptions of the day into doubt, and they eventually gave rise to the study of fossils for biological and historical purposes. Big Bone The Cradle of American Paleontology recounts the rich history of the fossil site that gave the world the first evidence of the extinction of several mammalian species, including the American mastodon. Big Bone Lick has played many nutrient source, hallowed ground, salt mine, health spa, and a rich trove of archaeological and paleontological wonders. Natural historian Stanley Hedeen presents a comprehensive narrative of Big Bone Lick from its geological formation forward, explaining why the site attracted animals, regional tribespeople, European explorers and scientists, and eventually American pioneers and presidents. Big Bone Lick is the history of both a place and a scientific it explores the infancy and adolescence of paleontology from its humble and sometimes humorous beginnings. Hedeen combines elements of history, geology, politics, and biology to make Big Bone Lick a valuable historical resource as well as the compelling tale of how a collection of fossilized bones captivated a young nation.
204 pages, Hardcover
First published February 15, 2008
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156 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 16, 2014
This is a good book for what it turns out to be but not what it alludes itself too. The book is a good history of Big Bone Lick. And that is all it is. If you are wondering how it fits into American Paleontology keep wondering the book does not address that example say it does. This is the disappointment of the book. I would have liked at least one chapter dedicated to how this one place began the movement which became the study of paleontology.
June 27, 2018
Fascinating short read about the history of Big Bone Lick and the part it played in bringing the existence of certain extinct animals to the knowledge of the world. I was honestly surprised at how many famous men and museums had studied the fossils found in this little corner of Kentucky. A little (bone) dry at the end, but overall a very interesting and educational read.
July 20, 2017
This was a fast reading and not too technical (more historic than scientific) book with in-depth coverage of one fossil-bearing site, one now preserved at Big Bone Lick State Park in northern Kentucky, and of the fossil finds from that site. Additionally, the book is about the conclusions drawn from those finds and how they influenced American and world paleontology and geology. Rather than trying to weave a grand narrative of how Big Bone Lick gave birth to American paleontology, the author appears to have decided to instead detail the history of the finds and the study of the site and then along the way note how these finds had much broader implications. Emphasis was placed more on the history of the people who explored the site and the development of a paleontology as a result rather than providing detailed information on the animals unearthed (though they are discussed and often illustrated with photographs or drawings). As part of the process of detailing the history of the site the author extensively quoted from primary source material, such as articles, books, and letters (as well as provided contemporary illustrations of the bones and teeth that were uncovered at the site).
Big Bone Lick the reader learns is really two things. It is a salt spring in what is now Boone County, Kentucky, near the Ohio River, the sulfurous brine that feeds the salt springs owing its origin to either pre-Ordovician Mount Simon Sandstone or the Ordovician St. Peter Sandstone. The salt spring has been described as a “muddy pond,” roughly about 200 yards wide and very sulfurous in smell or more recently a series of large boggy areas in an area of about 60 acres, each bog about 50 feet across. The site is also a “lick,” “an area where wet, salty soil was licked and trod upon by bison, elk, and deer…a large area of bare dirt depressed three to four feet below the floor of the wooded Big Cone Creek valley…[with the] licking, stamping, and burrowing of salt-seeking mammals, especially the abundant bison…responsible for creating the depression.” At least four bison roads (or buffalo traces) each up to fifteen feet wide, were known to lead through the woods to Big Bone Lick, roads also utilized by Native Americans to travel, hunt, and procure salt.
Importantly for the book, it is also a place where Native Americans and European settlers found “huge femur and rib bones, great ivory tusks, jawbones wider than the span of a man’s arms, molars the size of pumpkins,” bones that for a time were easily obtained on the surface of the ground and for many decade after with just a little digging.
First becoming known to Europeans in 1739 thanks to a French military expedition, it had been in use by Native Americans for hundreds of years as a source of salt, later becoming a major resource for Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana farmers who needed salt to make soap, manufacture leather, dye fabric, produce cheese, and most of all to salt meat (mostly pork) for transport. Though vital for a time, commercial production of salt from the site ceased in 1812 as other Ohio Valley salt springs had stronger brine (the Lick’s brine, to produce a bushel of salt, required between 500 and 1,000 gallons of salt water while other, later discovered salt springs only required as little as 50 gallons). Afterwards the Lick continued to be of use to local farmer and their livestock and later got a second life as a health resort as people sought the Lick’s brine for medicinal purposes (which did big business in the 19th century but by the early 1900s was largely a thing of the past).
While the history of the Lick’s use in commerce and industry was interesting, the real reason the reader would care about this place is the bones, teeth, and tusks there, barrels and barrels of bones that were excavated (for many years just laying exposed on the ground thanks to the actions of erosion and the wallowing around first of bison, later of cattle, who loved the Lick). Bones from the site were later studied by such notable naturalists as Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon and George Cuvier and by amateurs such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, and William Henry Harrison (the latter two of which personally collected fossils from the site). Almost as long as the Europeans knew of the site’s salt springs they knew of the bones there (the earliest known European awareness was a letter from western Pennsylvanian naturalist James Wright sent to Philadelphia botanist John Bartram in the 1760s).
One of the more interesting aspects of the book was how interpretations of the bones found there varied so much over time. Native Americans often identified the bones as belonging to vanished spirits, “of the homicidal great buffalo,” that they were the “remains of monstrous animals that were struck dead by spirit-propelled lightning bolts” or, according to the Iroquois, were the remains of large bison “killed by arrows shot from the bows of pygmies.” Little People who did a great service by extinguishing the dangerous Witch Buffalo.
European and American thought on the subject was far ranging indeed on the nature of the bones there and was a major component of the book, as study of the bones found there forced people to reconsider the age of the Earth, whether or not animals could go extinct (for a time it was thought that it was practically heretical to conclude that animals created by God could ever go extinct, with some individuals such as Thomas Jefferson a bit hopefully saying that the animals represented at the Lick must exist somewhere out west, though to his credit Jefferson as described by the author made a personal journey where he accepted that in fact animals could go extinct). A major component of the book was the development of professional and private thought on what the bones of the Lick meant, as their placement, numbers, and the lack of modern living representatives precluded previously held notions that they were either deposited there by Noah’s Flood or were animals somehow still alive out west, something exploration was rapidly revealing to not be the case.
Even issues of age of the earth and religion aside, researchers long struggled with what creatures were being unearthed at the Lick; were they elephants or hippos or rhinos? Maybe a long-lost relation, perhaps adapted to colder climes? Something entirely new? Were they carnivorous? This to me was a bit more interesting than the impact on religious thought and views of the age of the Earth (and also one that seemed to be a bit less driven by agenda but rather largely was confined the facts of the bones, teeth, and tusks themselves). The simple acceptance of such facts as “the curious shape of the teeth, the nontropical climate of Kentucky, and the absence of elephant sightings in the Americas” lead people to accept what they had found; newly discovered species that were no longer alive (though it took even longer to come to understand what they had in fact discovered).
Big Bone Lick produced a lot of firsts (hence the title of the book, Cradle of American Paleontology). The first ever picture of an American vertebrate fossil was of a massive molar (collected in 1739 and described by Georges Cuvier in 1756). The Lick gave the world the first known mastodon (described by Georges Cuvier in 1806, using the Greek terms for “breast” and “tooth” to note the conical protuberances on the molars – at the time called grinders). The elk-moose (genus Cervalces, its scientific name “reflects its features were intermediate between those of an elk (genus Cervus) and those of a moose (genus Alces)) was first discovered there, described in 1818. Also discovered for the first time thanks to find at the Lick was Bootherium bombifrons, variously known as Harlan’s musk ox, woodland musk ox, or helmeted musk ox, a taller and more slender and now extinct relative of the tundra musk ox that once lived in boreal forests and grasslands. Ancient Bison (once a separate species, Bison antiquus, not a subspecies, Bison bison antiquus) was also first found at the site (this species not described until 1852 as it lay unstudied from an 1807 collection in a Philadelphia museum cabinet). Yet another first was Equus complicatus – the complex-toothed horse, (“distinguished from other extinct horses by the pattern of complex folding on the molar’s grinding surface” and once a species widespread in the east-central and southeastern U.S.). Harlan’s Ground Sloth – Mylodon harlani – was another species discovered at the Lick, described by Richard Owen in 1840.
The book was a quick and easy read and very well researched. At times, it was maybe a bit too focused on the actual history and science of the Lick rather than delving into the “cradle” aspect of the title. I would have liked a bit more on that aspect or at least that aspect brought out a bit more, though the information is there. It could be a little dry at times and a few times the extended use of contemporary, primary source material in big block quotes was maybe a bit much. It could have a tiny bit lighter tone, maybe by a humorous spin on the fact that so many shipments of bones from the Lick sent to other places were lost in transit, often through sinking ships. Still, a good book and one I am glad I read.
Big Bone Lick the reader learns is really two things. It is a salt spring in what is now Boone County, Kentucky, near the Ohio River, the sulfurous brine that feeds the salt springs owing its origin to either pre-Ordovician Mount Simon Sandstone or the Ordovician St. Peter Sandstone. The salt spring has been described as a “muddy pond,” roughly about 200 yards wide and very sulfurous in smell or more recently a series of large boggy areas in an area of about 60 acres, each bog about 50 feet across. The site is also a “lick,” “an area where wet, salty soil was licked and trod upon by bison, elk, and deer…a large area of bare dirt depressed three to four feet below the floor of the wooded Big Cone Creek valley…[with the] licking, stamping, and burrowing of salt-seeking mammals, especially the abundant bison…responsible for creating the depression.” At least four bison roads (or buffalo traces) each up to fifteen feet wide, were known to lead through the woods to Big Bone Lick, roads also utilized by Native Americans to travel, hunt, and procure salt.
Importantly for the book, it is also a place where Native Americans and European settlers found “huge femur and rib bones, great ivory tusks, jawbones wider than the span of a man’s arms, molars the size of pumpkins,” bones that for a time were easily obtained on the surface of the ground and for many decade after with just a little digging.
First becoming known to Europeans in 1739 thanks to a French military expedition, it had been in use by Native Americans for hundreds of years as a source of salt, later becoming a major resource for Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana farmers who needed salt to make soap, manufacture leather, dye fabric, produce cheese, and most of all to salt meat (mostly pork) for transport. Though vital for a time, commercial production of salt from the site ceased in 1812 as other Ohio Valley salt springs had stronger brine (the Lick’s brine, to produce a bushel of salt, required between 500 and 1,000 gallons of salt water while other, later discovered salt springs only required as little as 50 gallons). Afterwards the Lick continued to be of use to local farmer and their livestock and later got a second life as a health resort as people sought the Lick’s brine for medicinal purposes (which did big business in the 19th century but by the early 1900s was largely a thing of the past).
While the history of the Lick’s use in commerce and industry was interesting, the real reason the reader would care about this place is the bones, teeth, and tusks there, barrels and barrels of bones that were excavated (for many years just laying exposed on the ground thanks to the actions of erosion and the wallowing around first of bison, later of cattle, who loved the Lick). Bones from the site were later studied by such notable naturalists as Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon and George Cuvier and by amateurs such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, and William Henry Harrison (the latter two of which personally collected fossils from the site). Almost as long as the Europeans knew of the site’s salt springs they knew of the bones there (the earliest known European awareness was a letter from western Pennsylvanian naturalist James Wright sent to Philadelphia botanist John Bartram in the 1760s).
One of the more interesting aspects of the book was how interpretations of the bones found there varied so much over time. Native Americans often identified the bones as belonging to vanished spirits, “of the homicidal great buffalo,” that they were the “remains of monstrous animals that were struck dead by spirit-propelled lightning bolts” or, according to the Iroquois, were the remains of large bison “killed by arrows shot from the bows of pygmies.” Little People who did a great service by extinguishing the dangerous Witch Buffalo.
European and American thought on the subject was far ranging indeed on the nature of the bones there and was a major component of the book, as study of the bones found there forced people to reconsider the age of the Earth, whether or not animals could go extinct (for a time it was thought that it was practically heretical to conclude that animals created by God could ever go extinct, with some individuals such as Thomas Jefferson a bit hopefully saying that the animals represented at the Lick must exist somewhere out west, though to his credit Jefferson as described by the author made a personal journey where he accepted that in fact animals could go extinct). A major component of the book was the development of professional and private thought on what the bones of the Lick meant, as their placement, numbers, and the lack of modern living representatives precluded previously held notions that they were either deposited there by Noah’s Flood or were animals somehow still alive out west, something exploration was rapidly revealing to not be the case.
Even issues of age of the earth and religion aside, researchers long struggled with what creatures were being unearthed at the Lick; were they elephants or hippos or rhinos? Maybe a long-lost relation, perhaps adapted to colder climes? Something entirely new? Were they carnivorous? This to me was a bit more interesting than the impact on religious thought and views of the age of the Earth (and also one that seemed to be a bit less driven by agenda but rather largely was confined the facts of the bones, teeth, and tusks themselves). The simple acceptance of such facts as “the curious shape of the teeth, the nontropical climate of Kentucky, and the absence of elephant sightings in the Americas” lead people to accept what they had found; newly discovered species that were no longer alive (though it took even longer to come to understand what they had in fact discovered).
Big Bone Lick produced a lot of firsts (hence the title of the book, Cradle of American Paleontology). The first ever picture of an American vertebrate fossil was of a massive molar (collected in 1739 and described by Georges Cuvier in 1756). The Lick gave the world the first known mastodon (described by Georges Cuvier in 1806, using the Greek terms for “breast” and “tooth” to note the conical protuberances on the molars – at the time called grinders). The elk-moose (genus Cervalces, its scientific name “reflects its features were intermediate between those of an elk (genus Cervus) and those of a moose (genus Alces)) was first discovered there, described in 1818. Also discovered for the first time thanks to find at the Lick was Bootherium bombifrons, variously known as Harlan’s musk ox, woodland musk ox, or helmeted musk ox, a taller and more slender and now extinct relative of the tundra musk ox that once lived in boreal forests and grasslands. Ancient Bison (once a separate species, Bison antiquus, not a subspecies, Bison bison antiquus) was also first found at the site (this species not described until 1852 as it lay unstudied from an 1807 collection in a Philadelphia museum cabinet). Yet another first was Equus complicatus – the complex-toothed horse, (“distinguished from other extinct horses by the pattern of complex folding on the molar’s grinding surface” and once a species widespread in the east-central and southeastern U.S.). Harlan’s Ground Sloth – Mylodon harlani – was another species discovered at the Lick, described by Richard Owen in 1840.
The book was a quick and easy read and very well researched. At times, it was maybe a bit too focused on the actual history and science of the Lick rather than delving into the “cradle” aspect of the title. I would have liked a bit more on that aspect or at least that aspect brought out a bit more, though the information is there. It could be a little dry at times and a few times the extended use of contemporary, primary source material in big block quotes was maybe a bit much. It could have a tiny bit lighter tone, maybe by a humorous spin on the fact that so many shipments of bones from the Lick sent to other places were lost in transit, often through sinking ships. Still, a good book and one I am glad I read.
July 30, 2013
As the subtitle indicates, this book is a history of the excavations of and theorizing about that treasure trove of prehistoric mammal bone, Big Bone Lick in Boone County, Kentucky.
Much of the book is pretty dry for the general reader with no special interest in the Lick.
One of the first big mysteries was the mastadon -- a creature known for a while as the incognitum -- first thought to be an elephant. But its strange predator-like molars (mastadon means breast tooth) were not those of an elephant. So for a while, it was theorized that this huge tusked carnivore roamed the land.
But the mastadon is sort of old hat. What I didn't know was that two species of giant land sloths roamed the continent.
Or that the fossil record indicates that bison came to Kentucky as late as 1540, so paleontologically speaking, they were only in this area a short time before European settlers with guns killed them off.
Just as it is theorized that Paleo-Indians who migrated across the ice to America with superior weapons (the Clovis point) killed off the mastadons.
But it was a bit more complicated than that and, in fact, I found the last chapter, the one on theories of extinction, the most interesting of all
Much of the book is pretty dry for the general reader with no special interest in the Lick.
One of the first big mysteries was the mastadon -- a creature known for a while as the incognitum -- first thought to be an elephant. But its strange predator-like molars (mastadon means breast tooth) were not those of an elephant. So for a while, it was theorized that this huge tusked carnivore roamed the land.
But the mastadon is sort of old hat. What I didn't know was that two species of giant land sloths roamed the continent.
Or that the fossil record indicates that bison came to Kentucky as late as 1540, so paleontologically speaking, they were only in this area a short time before European settlers with guns killed them off.
Just as it is theorized that Paleo-Indians who migrated across the ice to America with superior weapons (the Clovis point) killed off the mastadons.
But it was a bit more complicated than that and, in fact, I found the last chapter, the one on theories of extinction, the most interesting of all
October 9, 2010
Despite the questionable name, this book is a very scholarly attempt at comprehensively summarizing the myriad of information that has been published in various forms about the location of the same name in Ohio from the 1700's until now. I had never heard of the Big Bone Lick until I read the book. Apparently, people were finding mammoth and mastadon bones lying on the ground just about any time they visited the site from the 1700's until about 1930. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin knew about the place and sent people to gather bones for him.
The book itself tries to be a little too comprehensive in it's summary of what everyone and their dog has said about the Big Bone Lick. It's a bit repetative and dry. The most interesting thing about the book is the tracking of the scientific thought about the nature of the animals that left the bones. For example, at some point in time, everyone thought that the mammoth must be carnivorus and catch its prey by taking mighty leaps. I'd say the scientists were the ones taking mighty leaps.
The book itself tries to be a little too comprehensive in it's summary of what everyone and their dog has said about the Big Bone Lick. It's a bit repetative and dry. The most interesting thing about the book is the tracking of the scientific thought about the nature of the animals that left the bones. For example, at some point in time, everyone thought that the mammoth must be carnivorus and catch its prey by taking mighty leaps. I'd say the scientists were the ones taking mighty leaps.
August 2, 2018
Takes a long look at...
...The development of paleontology in North America, beginning in the mid 1700’s with curiosity hunters gathering Mastodon (among other species) bones and teeth from Big Bone Lick Kentucky without modern scientific regard for understanding the layers or how they got there.
...the long look at geologic and climate history and how the ice ages (particularly the Wisconsinian) formed the geography from north of the Ohio River south to middle Tennessee.
...the adaption flora and fauna to climate change and the inability of some to adapt.
...preliminary inquiry about human impacts on species extinction.
This book is scientific inquiry told in an accessible manner. Excellent reading if you like a good investigative story or have an Interest in extinct mammals of the Americas
...The development of paleontology in North America, beginning in the mid 1700’s with curiosity hunters gathering Mastodon (among other species) bones and teeth from Big Bone Lick Kentucky without modern scientific regard for understanding the layers or how they got there.
...the long look at geologic and climate history and how the ice ages (particularly the Wisconsinian) formed the geography from north of the Ohio River south to middle Tennessee.
...the adaption flora and fauna to climate change and the inability of some to adapt.
...preliminary inquiry about human impacts on species extinction.
This book is scientific inquiry told in an accessible manner. Excellent reading if you like a good investigative story or have an Interest in extinct mammals of the Americas
March 22, 2015
Good book on the historic site where the remains of a remarkable amount of mammoth, mastodon, elk-moose, helmeted musk ox and other ancient creatures were unearthed.
The book also provides interesting information about the salt lick as a significant place in Native lore and its medicinal and healthful properties.
The story of the paleontological finds is interwoven with the story of the amateur and professional paleontologists who found and interpreted them. Having some previous knowledge of historical figures in early paleontology is useful, as the names of scientists enter into the narrative thick and fast. Therefore, it is a good book for those who are already somewhat familiar with the subject, rather than a reader who is new to the history of this science.
The book also provides interesting information about the salt lick as a significant place in Native lore and its medicinal and healthful properties.
The story of the paleontological finds is interwoven with the story of the amateur and professional paleontologists who found and interpreted them. Having some previous knowledge of historical figures in early paleontology is useful, as the names of scientists enter into the narrative thick and fast. Therefore, it is a good book for those who are already somewhat familiar with the subject, rather than a reader who is new to the history of this science.
October 5, 2020
Filled with facts. Many facts of who collected the fossils and where they were sent, France, Britain and the White House. Almost too factual. Talked some about the American Indians of the region, the Shawnee’s and referenced the area during the French War and the American Revolution. Referenced the paths the Bison took and how the big animals; Wooly Mammoths and Megladons were attracted to the Salt Licks. If your going to visit this area it’s a must read. But, you’ll get more out of the book than the museum and displays there for sure.
January 5, 2020
Very interesting read, and well written so it doesn’t feel overwhelmingly like a text book. I enjoyed a walk through of the different descriptions/classifications for the bones found at Big Bone Lick. It’s interesting to see how perception changes with more technology and information and time to study the bones.
January 4, 2022
Extremely in-depth book about the state park located in southern Boone County. While I now live nearby, I never knew the extensive history of the place. While much of the book was interesting, I did find some of the detailed research to be a bit overwhelming at times as the author described the various species' bones being retrieved at Big Bone Lick. I thought the Native American legends at the start of the book were very interesting to hear. I also found the near constant excavations there since the mid to late 1700s to be history of which more nearby residents should be aware. Finally, after visiting the state park again during the reading of this book, more of the site become clear to me as I walked the grounds.
February 9, 2023
Not a bad book, just really in depth about a subject I'm not as in too.
February 13, 2024
Interesting historical aspects of the Big Bone Lick and it's many fossils, including multiple speculations about the giants who roamed there.
April 2, 2025
Not a terrible book but the person picking up the book is likely interested in the fossil history. So why have 40 pages right off the bat about a guy buying it, selling, then another guy buys it and setting up an inn and selling it for more money, etc. Makes for a very slow start and I felt like I had to force myself to keep slogging through it.
May 23, 2010
Interesting piece of Kentucky history; a bit dry at some points.
February 16, 2013
Great history about the Big Bone Lick site. I especially enjoyed the pre-historical Native American stories and information in the beginning.
September 7, 2010
I picked this up for Todd to read,he said "cute". Hrm.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews