Fossil Legends of the First Americans

by Adrienne Mayor

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?


Beginning in the East, with its Ice Age monsters, and ending in the West, where dinosaurs lived and died, this richly illustrated and elegantly written book examines the discoveries of enormous bones and uses of fossils for medicine, hunting magic, and spells. Well before Columbus, Native Americans observed the mysterious petrified remains of extinct creatures and sought to understand their transformation to stone. In perceptive creation stories, they visualized the remains of extinct mammoths, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine creatures as Monster Bears, Giant Lizards, Thunder Birds, and Water Monsters. Their insights, some so sophisticated that they anticipate modern scientific theories, were passed down in oral histories over many centuries.


Drawing on historical sources, archaeology, traditional accounts, and extensive personal interviews, Adrienne Mayor takes us from Aztec and Inca fossil tales to the traditions of the Iroquois, Navajos, Apaches, Cheyennes, and Pawnees. Fossil Legends of the First Americans represents a major step forward in our understanding of how humans made sense of fossils before evolutionary theory developed.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Science, Palaeontology, Anthropology, Mythology, Dinosaurs

489 pages, Paperback

First published March 21, 2005

Reviews

[Bill Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

What wonderful places the Americas are! This book provides two interconnected and unusual lenses that focus mostly on North America's past. So much of the continents' history predates its invasion by Europeans and vastly more time predates mankind. Fossil Legends does a terrific job of collecting diverse threads of science and lore into a cohesive account of a nearly lost past.

The discovery by Europeans of fossils in the United States opened up a window into ancient time in tantalizing fragments that are still being assembled slowly. The pre-European inhabitants of the continent, of course, had already found the remnants of immense, vanished creatures and woven the bones and tracks into their myths, legends, and religions. The crossroads of those legends and the birth of paleontology are the main concerns of this excellent volume. The coherence of native American myth across the expanse of the continent -- water monsters, thunderbirds, and the war between divine factions -- is an epic story and the telling of that epic beside the adventures of Marsh, Cope, and other early paleontologists, makes a wonderful pairing. The author approaches her subject with sympathy for the Indians who, even today, are fighting to retain control of the remnants of their culture and heritage.

The jacket illustration by Pete von Sholly is especially wonderful for an old comic book fan like me. It shows Turok (Son of Stone) and his son Andar standing among fossils with Turok's tale of the war between gods painted on the clouds, a perfect summing up of paleontology and the romanticized view of native Americans in popular culture and imagination.

Now I'm very much looking forward to reading Ms. Mayor's book The First Fossil Hunters, about the European roots of paleontology.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the way Mayor lays out the American Indian understanding of the fossils they encountered. It really shows how complex and reasoned their stories were, and how they understood fossils much earlier and much better than anyone with white skin. Looking forward to finishing this book's predecessor about fossils in ancient Greece and Rome.

[Luke Landis · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 / 5

Too ambitious for its own good, this incohesive if comprehensive work on the history of American paleontology with a focus on Native traditions misses the mark. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was struggling to get through it because stress was making it harder to read in general. It soon became clear though that this academic vendetta, republished to cash in on social justice hype, leaves much to be desired.

I’m glad Mayor and her colleagues are doing this sort of work, and we are lucky to have even a fraction of these rich Native American oral histories preserved. The sheer amount of effort behind the information gathering alone is staggering considering interviews, familiarizing visits to actual sites of cultures & fossils, and cross-referencing archival sources & museum storage. Organizing that information then into a smooth 300 pages is nearly impossible.

While most of the fossil legends themselves deliver on an interesting premise, the scope seemingly broadens at times to capture any Native interaction with their environment at all. What begins as helpful context quickly becomes filler. This continues iteratively through the book as its geographic through line isn’t enough to keep it from devolving into senseless repetition that, instead of reinforcing the thesis, numbs the reader. Sympathetic speculation further weakens the premise.

This work would have almost certainly been better as a series of papers or a more formal textbook, but it’s not entirely unredeemable. It does retell some truly prescient, self-aware myths & is full of illuminating historical context. Some of the Native American names, like Silas Fills the Pipe or White Man Runs Him (Custer’s scout), were striking. I also found the 2005 Overton Window interesting as Mayor shows no hesitation using the moniker Indian. Save for paleontology enthusiasts, this one can be skipped.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, it's been a while since I read this, but this was one of the most fun academic books I've read.

A feature I particularly enjoyed was the chapter quotes, usually two per chapter, if I remember correctly. One quote would be obviously biased and usually racist about how the Native Americans were not smart enough, didn't realize the significance of the things these nice white archaeologists were "discovering". The second quote would be a very definite contrast, with recorded quotes from Native Americans showing that they knew exactly what these fossils were and what they signified long before Europeans came to these shores.

I believe this book is a perfectly logical assumption that people in ancient times knew as much or more about fossils and what came before our lives as we do now, and usually with less fuss. That they incorporated this knowledge is to be expected: their myth were their science, just as our science is our myth (well, most of us).

I definitely need to re-read this book, just so I can point out more factual information rather than the impression I retain. But I do vividly remember that the author pointed out examples from both Americas, and I thought that was wonderful since South America gets ignored unless someone is talking about the Amazon.

A thoroughly enjoyable book, which I think gleefully turns over many biased and ethnocentric assumptions about where our knowledge comes from.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fossil Legends of the First Americans is an impressive collection of research on the oral traditions of Native Americans. In addition to oral traditions, Adrienne Mayor records how Native Americans have interacted with and interpreted fossil material, in both the past and the present. One of Mayor’s most valuable contributions here is the dialogue she contributes to regarding the philosophy of science. What does it mean to “do” science?

Is simply finding a fossil ‘science’?
Is recognizing the fossil for what it is (preserved remains of ancient life) ‘science’?
Is deliberate excavation of more fossils at a known site ‘science’?
Is telling a story (a hypothesis) about a fossil ‘science’?
Is finding a way to test that hypothesis ‘science’?

Mayor argues that paleontologists in the mid-20th century held a very limited (and Euro-centric) view of what officially counts as scientific contributions, and one purpose of this book seems to be to highlight the ways in which other ways of thinking (i.e. Native American oral traditions and knowledge) can also align with the general approach and understanding of the modern scientific community. Mayor highlights ways in which Native Americans observed, collected, and attempted to explain fossils; how they verified reports of fossils and deliberately excavated them; how they recognized concepts such as deep time, faunal succession, relationships between fossil and living species (evolution), and extinction; and how they revised their narratives with new information when it became available.

Fossil Legends had the potential to be truly excellent, but unfortunately, poor organization and poor thesis development limits the impact of the extensive research herein. Mayor frequently described oral traditions, then described fossil material known to occur in the general area, and then moved on, as if the connections between the legends and the local paleontology were clear and firmly established, without making much effort to argue for the connections or present evidence for them. In other places, she spends a long time developing “long shot” arguments exploring the possibility that oral traditions may have been referring to well-known and charismatic fossil taxa, only to conclude that these possibilities were extremely unlikely. This book was far longer than necessary, yet very shallow in developing essential arguments; it reads like a very good first draft of a work in progress.

Organization, Schmorganization

Despite the impressive amount of research that Mayor fit into this book, the overall message is hindered by incredibly haphazard organization. The main structure is geographic, with each chapter focusing on a different region of the Americas. While this structure could have worked, and even has some inherent logic, I think it ultimately limited Mayor’s ability to successfully draw broader connections and make more impactful statements about how oral traditions relate to fossil evidence and a scientific understanding of the natural world.

By tightly restricting each chapter to a geographic region, Mayor fragments her arguments unnecessarily. She introduces a scientific concept demonstrated by the fossil legends of one region, and then notes that similar concepts are addressed in another chapter about another region, but never gets around to directly illustrating how legends from multiple regions can all support the idea that oral traditions incorporated scientific concepts of, for example, deep time or faunal succession. Organizing chapters around these different concepts would have made for stronger and more cohesive arguments.

Splitting information by geographic region also requires Mayor to repeat information over and over again for each new area. The ‘grandfather of the buffalo,’ for example, is introduced again and again in different parts of the text, without any additional interpretation. The one benefit here is that you could probably read just a single chapter if you were only interested in a specific geographic region.

On a finer scale, the organization within each chapter is chaotic. The text reads like a random sequence of facts from Mayor’s research notes, occasionally interspersed with other irrelevant information. Mayor randomly slips into travel-blog mode and suddenly transitions from dry academic text into colorful present-tense narratives: “After some searching, I finally find the dirt road winding uphill to the trailer-home ranch, overlooking a prairie dog village guarded by a very large, limping German shepherd, friendly as a puppy. Johnson Holy Rock opens the door, a slim, cheerful man of eighty-four with tousled gray hair, wearing jeans, a blue-and-white striped cowboy shirt, and boots. I introduce myself…” (pg. 255-256). The overall effect is that of whiplash and confusion.

A target audience of 1: George Gaylord Simpson

Unfortunately, and inexplicably, Mayor frames the entire book with a very singular audience in mind: she wrote this book so that George Gaylord Simpson could see the error of his ways. In the introduction, she writes: “If the ghost of George Gaylord Simpson seems to hover over these pages, it is because he was the imaginary scientific reader I would most hope to convince of the worth of this project” (pg. xxviii), and in the conclusion, she writes: “I have endeavored to gather enough dramatic evidence, backed up by rigorous documentation, to persuade even George Gaylord Simpson, were he still alive, to relax his stance as a sentinel of hard science…” (pg. 297).

Simpson was a very influential paleontologist of the mid-20th century, and he is also very much dead. He cannot read this book. Unfortunately, he was often, as Mayor frequently highlights, very dismissive of Native Americans and their contributions to science. His views on the subject make Mayor’s decision to feature him so prominently in this book particularly unclear. Why give him so much space and attention? Why establish an antagonist at all? Keeping the central focus on the fossil legends themselves and on the people who maintained these oral traditions feels like it would be far more appropriate.

An endlesss séance with George Gaylord Simpson:

- “an anticipation of evolution theory that would have interested George Gaylord Simpson” (pg. 38-39)
- “George Gaylord Simpson would have been struck, I think, by the sense of deep time expressed in the […] Creation stories.” (pg. 150)
- “… which would suit George Gaylord Simpson’s definition of a true paleontological insight.” (pg. 215)
- “I imagine that George Gaylord Simpson would have been interested in this progression of observation and interpretation.” (pg. 237)
- “[these insights], had he known of them, might have led George Gaylord Simpson to revise his dismissive assumptions about Native observations and speculations about Earth’s deep past.” (pg. 251)
- “an insight that might have gained George Gaylord Simpson’s approval.” (pg. 292)
- “Would Simpson be convinced that Native American discoveries and interpretations deserve a place in the history of paleontology? That’s debatable—by all accounts he was an ‘irascible man and very firm in his convictions’—yet I feel that this new evidence would encourage Simpson to reconsider his judgement.” (pg. 297)

Problems with the Paleontology

Fossil Legends lies at the novel intersection of oral traditions and science. Although the legends themselves seem to be very well-researched, the science components unfortunately had rather shaky foundations. The paleontological content in this book was often outdated (even when considering the state of the field in 2005, when this book was originally published), misrepresented, oversimplified, or outright incorrect.

Just a few examples:

“Today’s scientists are more precise… After Earth was formed about 4—6 [sic] billion years ago, there was a long, lifeless period, the Azoic era, which corresponds to…” (pg. 150)
Presumably, “4—6” is a typo, because an age range of 2 billion years is not precise at all. Also, today’s scientists no longer use the term “Azoic” – you will not see this term on any modern geological timescales.

“It is interesting to note that a breach of geochronology is the mechanism for science fiction plots in which a time warp causes humans to suddenly find themselves thrust into the Mesozoic era [. . .] such breaches of geochronology are known as ‘Medicine Holes’ or ‘windows into time’” (pg. 133)
What we are talking about here is just plain-old regular time travel. There’s no need to misuse the term “geochronology” just to make an argument sound more science-y. A breach in time is fine. A breach in the scientific field of age-dating rocks makes no sense.

“Modern paleontologists use the phrase ‘the mark of death upon the land’ to describe the great disaster that resulted in the variety of fossil species so brutally scattered about at Agate Springs.” (pg. 249-250)
No, one National Park Handbook published in 1980 used this phrase as a chapter subheading. Hardly a standard phrase used by modern paleontologists, as Mayor would have you believe. It would be more appropriate and accurate to attribute this expression to its singular author.

[Laura Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Mayor has assembled many accounts and stories of how indigenous people in North and South America explained fossils. Of course they were aware of them, investigated them, tried to explain them. And unlike Europeans, Native groups figured out early that fossils showed evidence of deep time, evolution, extinction, and catastrophes.

[Foggygirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent fascinating read.

[jj Grilliette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating.

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book begins by describing one of the first fossil elephant finds in America -- by a party of Abenakis. (Of particular interest to me, since one of my great-great-grandmothers was probably Abenaki.) The account was later rewritten to have the find made by a French commander. . .

This is a follow-up to the author's earlier book on the fossil discoveries of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It is somewhat more speculative, since the Native American traditions were oral and usually only written down after being filtered through a European-American interpreter. But she does present a great deal of evidence that many Native American legends were inspired by fossil remains. In fact, in many ways the American legends were more advanced, or at least closer to modern thinking, than those of the ancients -- or of the white settlers who were trying to convince the Indians that the world was created 6,000 years ago and the fossils were giants who drowned in "Noah's flood."

Where the Greeks and Romans -- and early settlers -- usually interpreted the remains as giant humans, or mythical composite animals like centaurs, the North American Indian legends interpreted them as large extinct animals, and often correctly as the ancestors of living species. The Indian legends also frequently considered the world very old, and described the sequence of different worlds as originally under water, then being populated first by insects and reptiles, then giant animals, and finally modern animals and humans. (The Mesoamerican legends were more similar to the ancient Europeans in this regard.) The reasons for this may be that as a result of geological differences, North American fossil fauna are often found complete and reasonably articulated, while the Mediterranean fossils are usually scattered and fragmentary, and mixed together; and that many North American remains are of relatives of animals living in the same areas, like giant bison and cave bears, while the European fossil remains are of elephants, giraffes, rhinoceros, and other animals the Greeks and Romans only came in contact with very late if at all.

The book moves geographically, basically counterclockwise beginning in the Northeast, then moving down to Mexico, then to the Southwest, the Northwest, the Rockies. the Great Plains and the High Plains. Mayor is unfortunately rather unselective, with important points being juxtaposed to trivial or doubtful stories and descriptions; the book is much longer than it needed to be and fairly repetitive, but still quite interesting.

The final chapter takes on the controversial topic of ownership of fossil finds on the reservations and the sometimes hostile relations of Indians and paleontologists today.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is in very much a similar vein to Adrienne Mayor's earlier book, The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times, tracing evidence, via literature, folklore and myth, of the awareness of ancient cultures of prehistoric fossils. She set herself a much harder task in this book, in tracing Native American awareness and understanding of fossil remains via stories and myth-making, since most Native cultures are oral and therefore prior to the relatively modern era left little in the way of written evidence of myths and beliefs.

It's a fascinating read, although it didn't enthral me in quite the same way as her other book. Part of my issue was the approach, I have to confess. For a start, it would be impossible to replicate the thoughts and beliefs of earlier generations of Native Americans; for all that their culture is predominately oral, it is virtually impossible to believe that modern stories and myths can have been handed down over decades and centuries within any change, modification or influence from current knowledge. Unlike a Greek vase or a Roman tablet, there is no way of ascertaining just how old a story may be. A storyteller saying it has been passed from his grandfather's grandfather's grandfather is not evidence.

I can well believe that earlier generations of Native Americans, both pre- and post-Columbian, will have incorporated the fossils and remains into their belief systems, that stories of Thunder Beings and Water Monsters may have been inspired by the scattered remains of gigantic creatures, that Native Americans may have shown much more awareness of 'deep time' and geological epochs, of extinction events, climate change and climatic disasters, than pre-Darwinian Europeans may have. But relying of stories told now as evidence of what people believed then, is just too much of a stretch for me. But it's an interesting theory, one I well believe, and given how well it ties into the arguments in her previous book about the Greeks and Romans, it's a theory that I think holds up, despite the lack of empirical evidence - and certainly I think more attention needs to be paid by the academic community to what Native American myths and legends may reveal about intellectual sophistication and ancestral knowledge.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be endlessly fascinating. I have often wondered what Native Americans thought and believed about the prolific fossils so conspicuously populating their natural landscape. Ms. Mayor's book is by no means exhaustive or comprehensive, but it is meticulously well-researched and documented. She admits herself that she is merely scratching the surface in this new hybrid discipline of paleontological folklore. Fossil Legends of the First Americans gives me a much greater appreciation for the wisdom and culture of Native Americans. It also helps me understand the reticence that the Ute tribe (on whose lands I often work) has toward collecting fossils on their lands. It is a difficult line to walk between respecting Native American traditions and beliefs and paleontological principles and research.
My first complaint are on a lack of figures for many of the more interesting topics covered along with the fact that there were many figures which I thought were unnecessary. My next complaint is on the organization of the notes section. I appreciated the copious notes and references given to accompany the text, but I found that they were sporadic, inconsistent, and even misplaced or irrelevant. I guess I don't understand the notation standards for folklorists. All in all, Fossil Legends of the First Americans gives a well researched walk-through on many Native American myths, legends, and beliefs regarding fossils. I recommend it to anyone interested in Paleontology or Native American folklore.

[Kitri Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

That covered a lot of ground, and based on a wide range of sources. If history had been different, this subject would have probably been more than a single book. But between a huge decrease in the native population preventing the information being passed down, distrust of white invaders and not sharing information, it isn't suprising that that is only a volume left of what we can know of what Native American thought of fossils.
For what there is you get an interesting picture. There is a lot of history, an understanding that Native Americans were pretty good at understanding of what they were looking at, art from before Europeans show up until recent, bits of religion, the whole deal is brought together for the modern reader. There are even mentions of how it relates to the Bone Wars and many luminaries of European science, all of whom had different reactions to the Native Americans take on fossil bones.

[John Majerle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before reading this book I thought I was reasonably informed on both North American fossils and Native American culture. Not and expert - but at least reasonably informed. And so I wasn't expecting to learn much from this essay. Boy was I wrong, and I should have known better given that it was researched and created by the historian Adrienne Mayor. Like many outside indigenous culture, I never fully appreciated the native perspective on archaeology, paleontology, and deep history. Reading this book gives me better context for these subjects. I don't think I'll look at American artifacts the same way going forward.

I also now have a better appreciation for Native American myth. I've enjoyed reading myth stories from around the world but have missed out on a tradition from my own backyard! I'm looking forward to diving into a whole new area of culture and literature.

[Will · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you are a paleontologist of any degree, geologist, or in the general geosciences I do not recommend you read this book. Fossil Legends is infuriating to read as a scientist, but reasonably interesting for the general public. While some topics are fascinating from an anthropological perspective, the outdated hypotheses, inconsistent POV, general disregard for most paleontological specimens, and an absurd obsession with George Gaylord Simpson come together to create a truly macabre spectacle.

This book was published in 2005 and has not been updated. Like other fields of science, the geosciences are always evolving. The Geologic Timescale used just before the Acknowledgements shows its age. A non-scientist won't notice any problem, but the current geologic timescale has been updated at least 3 times since this book was published and is much more refined with better age resolution. I'm guessing Adrienne Mayor (Author) is using the Lourens 2004 timescale. In the geosciences we are utilizing the Gradstein 2020 timescale. I realize this may seem arbitrary, but for a scientist details really matter.

Many of the scientific hypotheses of this book are also quite outdated compared to the contemporary scientific literature. Mass extinction hypotheses are of particular interest here, as these factor into almost all Native American fossil interpretations. Most of the tribes see water as a mass cleanser, wiping away the old world and replacing it with the new. This is fascinating and I wish this topic received more attention from the Author. Unfortunately the reader receives several half-hearted attempts to explain water based extinctions. No, us scientists do not think oceanic methane release led to mass extinctions (especially of terrestrial "land" species).

Inconsistent reporting, time skips, and altering POV all add up to a very confusing read. Sometimes the author begins the chapter with her personal boots in the sand of a fossil lake hunting for clues, and then she jumps into a 3rd person accounting of a Native American oral tradition, then back to the fossil lake. These jumps really take away from the history she is trying to impart.

The author also skips over truly interesting topics, like for example the Native American view of Deep Time. This is a concept of science that a LOT of people today struggle with. Most of us think in centennial terms. Our lives are relatively short, so we don't think much beyond the realm of human history. A geologist or astronomer needs to slow their historical thinking. We think about things that happened millions of years ago. A million years ago. That's a number that many find hard to grasp. It can be especially difficult when holding a fossilized ammonite and think this amazing little creature is 300 MILLION years old. And yet, the Native American tribes looked at fossilized bones, teeth, and whole species and grasped Deep Time like a fish takes to water! I think Mayor could have written an incredible book just about this topic. We get maybe 15 pages of this in Fossil Legends. 15 pages scattered over the whole book. Not all in one place.

And of course George Gaylord Simpson is a racist. Adrienne Mayor wants you to know that Gaylord Simpson is racist. As racist as can be. She hits this point almost every 5th page. There is a quote followed by a couple paragraphs of bashing. The author does not like this man, and has a rather unhealthy obsession with telling her readers how awful Simpson's racism is. It became an exhausting theme after the 1st chapter.

Maybe this book would suit a non-scientist with a passing interest in general paleontology. But with the outdated scientific concepts I wouldn't want to recommend it.

Sorry no micropaleontology in this one. I was hoping for a couple of crinoid necklaces … alas.

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating and astoundingly well-researched.
*note to self that I annotated this book in my hard copy for future reference

[Allen Riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

An academic reading of Native American myths involving Dinosaur and Pleistocene fossils.

Mayor is frustrated with the rejection of oral and traditional knowledge from paleontological research. She argues that traditional knowledge contains legitimate facts that can be used in a scientific context, or at least in framing scientific research. She calls for researchers to develop a method of accessing the usable information in myths. Her approach is to make inferences based on possible references to fossils and extinct animals, and to connect these references to confirmed cases where fossils were referenced or used.

It makes sense that a group of people who had been living in a particular place for a very long time would be aware of and influenced by these objects and that knowledge of now-extinct Pleistocene animals would be preserved in tradition.

The artwork of a shaman battling a giant pterodactyl in the sky is in strange taste for an academic text and probably doesn't help her cause, but I like it. There's more artwork like this inside, too.

There are good bits here and there: apparently ants are viewed as the keepers of time in some myths, due to their ability to bring tiny chunks of fossils up from the ground in ant hills.

Is it possible to have a rigorous methodology based in inference?

[Csenge · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very impressed with this book. As an academic, I appreciated the meticulous and wide-ranging research that went into it, but even more than that, as a storyteller I appreciated the absolute respect with which Mayor handled indigenous culture and tradition. She did not only have a great understanding of folklore and paleontology, but also of storytelling as an art form, and current cultural and social issues surrounding the traditions she researched. It is a rare example of various academic fields being combined without passing judgment on any of them.
As for the contents of the book, I was once again fascinated, and learned a lot. I learned about the ancient flora and fauna of North and South America, I learned a lot about paleontology (and the history of this field as well), I also learned many things about indigenous history, American history, and indigenous traditions. Every page of the book had something intriguing to think about, and I am pretty sure than I will never visit a natural history museum in the USA without thinking of this book. On top of all of that, it was also a very entertaining read.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

If dinosaurs intrigued you long before Jurassic Park, and if you seek to increase your understanding of Native American culture, this book is for you.

[Kathy Meier]

I didn't make it all the way through. Had some really neat information about a bone bed in Kentucky.

[Drake Tungsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinating look at how early cultures discovered dinosaur fossils and incorporated them into their mythology.