Product Description

Griffins, Centaurs, Cyclopes, and Giants--these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact--in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.

As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin, for example, sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners, who, passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains, encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground.

Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology. As Peter Dodson writes in his Foreword, "Paleontologists, classicists, and historians as well as natural history buffs will read this book with the greatest of delight--surprises abound."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1052983 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Since fossils have presumably existed for millions of years, why don't we see much palaeontological thought from ancient writers? Classics scholar Adrienne Mayor suggests that we can in fact learn much about the Greek and Roman attitudes toward fossils if we turn to a surprising source of data and theory: their myths. In The First Fossil Hunters, she explores likely connections between the rich fossil beds around the Mediterranean and tales of griffins and giants originating in the classical world. Striking similarities exist between the Protoceratops skeletons of the Gobi Desert and the legends of the gold-hoarding griffin told by nomadic people of the region, and the fossilised remains of giant Miocene mammals could be taken for the heroes and monsters of earlier times. Mayor makes her case well, but, as with all interpretive science, the arguments are inconclusive. Still, her novel reading of ancient myth--and her critique of the modern scientific mythology that seeks to explain the lack of classical palaeontological thinking--is compelling and thought-provoking. The final chapter of The First Fossil Hunters is an engrossing and occasionally quite funny look at "Paleontological Fictions" dating back several thousand years; the false tritons and centaurs give PT Barnum and his successors a much longer genealogy than previously thought. Whether or not you accept Mayor's analysis of Greek and Roman thinking, The First Fossil Hunters should open your eyes to new possibilities about our distant past. --Rob Lightner

Richard Fortey, London Review of Books
[Mayor] has done an admirable job . . . [she] easily persuades us that these early writers indeed recorded a palaeontological bonanza. . . .

John Noble Wilford, The New York Times
[Here] literary and artistic clues . . . explain the inspiration for many. . . giants, monsters, and other strange creatures in the mythology of antiquity.

Customer Reviews

Fabulous fables formed from facts
Two millennia of condemnation of "pagan" mythology have obscured the value ancient legends contributed to knowledge. Being members of this world instead of longing for the next, our ancient ancestors were keen observers of Nature. Among their interests were "mythical monsters". The Griffin - a combination of lion and eagle; the Minotaur - a man with a bull's head; or the Cyclops - a man with but one eye. These familiar characters emerged from ancient Mediterranean societies and transmitted down to our own time. Lost in the transmission was the notion that there might be a factual basis for such creatures. Adrienne Mayor wants to clarify the origins of mythological creatures. In this excellent study, she challenges fixed thinking about myths' origins.

The Mediterranean is a dynamic place. Continental plates collide, pushing up mountains, diverting rivers and causing sea basins to flood or become dry. The constantly changing conditions reveal long buried fossil sites. Mayor builds a vivid picture of how the ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Romans might encounter these strange artefacts and attempt to make sense of them. What would these bizarre skulls, teeth or thigh bones mean to them? They were aware of anatomy and didn't mistake a leg bone for a vertebrae. Their reconstructions of the artefacts were reasonably accurate. They "knew" the fossils represented once-living creatures. Not having mastered the scientific discipline of today, they "interpreted" the exposed fossils in human terms - stories of mighty people, heroic deeds and lost worlds. Mayor argues that fossils led the ancients to understand life wasn't fixed. Creatures and humans alike had once lived in ancient times, then died out. Extinction was a real possibility - it had already happened.

Combining photographs and expressive line drawings to supplement her text, Mayor offers vivid evidence of the source for many mythical creatures. When bone assemblages of several species jumbled together were found, it was only logical to assume a single creature was once built around them. Hence, we are told of bull-headed men, or lions with an eagle's beak. We can see how the image of a bizarre creature emerging from a cave is actually a dinosaur fossil protruding from an eroding cliff. The view on a vase painting depicts this scene with superb clarity. With no idea of the Earth's true age, it was easy to make these judgements. Mythology is built from human experience, so it was fitting to give these creatures human characteristics.

Mayor's challenge to both classical scholars and paleontology permeates the book. The long history of dismissal of legendary creatures and the myths surrounding them blinds both scholars and the public alike, she contends. She suggests scientists and classicists enlarge their views of the information and evidence and reconsider how we perceive the past. As an example, Aristotle was long attributed as advocating fixity of species; a notion seized on by Christian scholars. Mayor demonstrates this is a limited reading of the philosopher. More such revelations might come to light if open-minded researchers seek further. Some documents have shown how the ancients measured and assessed fossil. They were clearly aware that fossils demonstrated that contemporary life and past life were similar but not identical. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

the first fossil hunters
A very interesting read. I would recommend this book to other interested persons.

I knocked a star off as whilst the book covers impact of early beliefs about mythical creatures on the interpretation of fossil remains it does not include recent research on how the brain can experience such creatures even in modern times.

Good premise, tires a bit around the edges
The author is undoubtedly right about many of the things in the book, but it tires a little with all the appeals to incredulity. Just because something looks obvious or right to us, it does not make it so. This is a pity as this rhetorical flaw gets in the way of an otherwise very well structured and interesting argument.

The collection of classical authors at the back is both good work and useful.

The book, while interesting, did not have me turning the pages as I had anticipated as it was neither archaeological nor paleontological but lost in a limbo straddling the two. diagrams and images could have been a little better also.

Otherwise, a good story, which every excavator should at least know about to avoid losing more information as good stuff is thrown out with the rubbish on digs.