Dragons’ Teeth and Thunderstones: The Quest for the Meaning of Fossils

by Ken McNamara

For at least half a million years, people have been doing some very strange things with fossils. Long before a few seventeenth-century minds started to decipher their true, organic nature, fossils had been eaten, dropped in goblets of wine, buried with the dead, and adorned bodies. What triggered such curious behavior was the belief that some fossils could cure illness, protect against being poisoned, ease the passage into the afterlife, ward off evil spirits, and even kill those who were just plain annoying. But above all, to our early prehistoric ancestors, fossils were the very stuff of artistic inspiration. Drawing on archaeology, mythology, and folklore, Ken McNamara takes us on a journey through prehistory with these curious stones, and he explores humankind’s unending quest for the meaning of fossils.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Palaeontology

288 pages, Hardcover

Published October 29, 2020

About the author

Ken McNamara is like a child who never grew up. Like many children, he had an early fascination with fossils (though not dinosaurs, particularly). He grew up in Brighton, England, which lies on chalk hills called the South Downs. When he was eight or nine years old, he discovered that the hills contained fossils—shells, sea urchins, ammonites, shark teeth—and he was hooked! Most people grow out of their childhood hobbies … and he tried, honestly.

After earning a degree in geology and mineralogy at Aberdeen University, he went on to complete a Ph.D. at Cambridge University in England. When he finished his studies at Cambridge, he decided it was time for a change and immigrated to Australia.

Ken has been collecting fossils for so long that he almost feels like one at times. He is very happy to work as a paleontologist at the Western Australia Museum in Perth, where they pay him to spend time on his hobby. As well as collecting, studying and writing scientific papers and books about fossils, Ken and his colleagues at the museum have created a great fossil display called “Diamonds to Dinosaurs.”

When he is not being a curator or writing about fossils, Ken likes listening to music and playing the piano. He lives in the Jarrah Forest in the hills above Perth, in a glass and timber house that has a large eucalyptus tree growing up through the middle of it. He lives there with his wife, three children, two cats, countless zebra finches, opossums in the roof, bandicoots in the garden, and the odd kangaroo that visits from time to time.

Reviews

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a unique book. There are plenty of titles out there on fossils, and this book has fossils at its heart - but it's not really about them. It is, rather, an exploration of humanity's attempts to understand what fossils are and what (if anything) they might do for us. As the subtitle suggests, it's not about fossils, not about the search for fossils, but about the search for the meaning of fossils.

Ken McNamara's style is striking - stylish yet also often blunt and not at all academic in his wording, even though he is addressing this topic from an academic viewpoint. This comes across particularly strongly when he is describing a Stone Age person turning a piece of flint with a beautiful fossil embedded in it into a hand axe. As the flint was delicately chipped away, the stone worker took one chip too many, slightly damaging the fossil. McNamara comments 'Should they have had the power of speech at this stage in human evolution, would it be unreasonable to suggest that their response to this final misguided blow was an early, archaic human's version of "Oh f***!"?'

The part about 'should the have had the power of speech' underlines the most dramatic revelation here, which is emphasised on the very first page: 'People have been collecting fossils for hundreds of thousands of years...' By people, McNamara is going back further than the origin of Homo sapiens - remarkably, there is evidence of fossils being used ceremonially for longer than this.

So for originality and insight this should be a five star review. The approach is engaging and different. The revelation of the vast length of time fossils have been collected is remarkable. However, I do have to limit my enthusiasm, because the trouble is that after a while it all gets a little samey. This is in part because the uses made of fossils (for example as magical protection) seem to have been fairly consistent over the millennia, and similarly the fossils used were mostly from a very small group: fish teeth, fossilised sea urchins and ammonites, plus a couple of shellfish types, make up the vast majority of the finds.

I don't want to put anyone who is interested in fossils off this book. I think you will learn new things about mankind's attitude to fossils and how they have been used - and McNamara's style is refreshing and genuinely different. However, equally, it does feel quite repetitive in its topics, which in the end dragged down its star rating.

[Hanne Andersen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many interesting facts and stories, but perhaps lack story telling.

[zozo · Rating 4 out of 5]

sweetly poetic for a book about a joke of time

[Abi Pellinor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book, it's about fossils but rather than being about the science and archaeology of them it instead a sociological look into the mythology and folklore that has built up around these items around the world.

There is evidence of fossils being used ceremonially and attached to clothing and jewellery since before the origin of Homo Sapiens. These items have been integrated into our societies and belief systems for longer than humanity itself has been alive, and there is plenty of evidence of how important these fossils were to ancient socities.

The book does primarily focus on Europe, unsurprising with the author being British, but there are mentions of Asia, especially China, and how this practice still continues to this day in their traditional medicine. It was especially interesting to learn that, for some illness and with certain fossils, there actually is a medicinal use for them. Although there are plenty of uses that have no known benefit too.

There unfortunately is some repetition throughout this book, as the types of fossils used (teeth, urchins, and ammonites) are primarily the same in all finds, as well as the use type often being as magical protection. Despite this I was still intrigued.

This is a really unique non-fiction, and one I'd definitely recommend if you're interested in fossils or earlier human societies!

[Zeph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative and fun, McNamara's dive into humanity's history with fossils was a great read.
I love archeology and palaeontology, so the blend in this book was amazing. An utterly unique book.