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It has become common to claim various mythological creatures have been inspired by fossils, often as an established and certain fact.
There are two issues with these theories.
Firstly, whenever you research these claims, you ALWAYS run into the glaring fact that no single massive fossil has ever truly been confirmed to have been identified by any ancient culture. Texts discussing this idea seriously, always admit this, yet still presents fossils being an inspiration as an established fact.
Secondly, these claims almost always strain under closer examination. Dragons, are often seen as inspired by dinosaur fossils. However, their appearance, especially in early sources, differ significantly from dinosaurs. In near eastern ancient and antique sources they often look like giant snakes. In European medieval illustrations, they also take on mammalian traits. Chinese dragons have the face of a camel and the body of a snake. The depicting of dragons as dinosaur like is a very recent phenomena.
Another issue I personally find with this theory is that it’s not inconceivable that ancient peoples constantly stumbled upon massive fossils but simply didn’t identify them.
Look at this video, at around 4:11. Basically, some archeology youtubers are digging in a hill in Africa that is literally bursting with lystrosaurus (Permian mammal relative) fossils, and they even find two such skulls in a matter of hours. But even when you have this skull right in front of you, you still need an expert to identify that it even is a skull and what parts of the skull you are looking at and when.
This article discuss this idea and have some nice pictures.
Links to videos and articles discussing similar, specific claims:
- Did Cyclopes Come From Elephants?
- Why Protoceratops almost certainly wasn’t the inspiration for the griffin legend
Lastly, there are a few accounts that I find somewhat plausible. Like mammoth skeletons being found and seen as ancient monsters. Interestingly, we don’t have widespread myths about giant hairy elephants, so if mammoths were found, they didn’t inspire much mythology. And it does seem native Indians found trilobite fossils and referred to them as water bugs and wore them as gems for good luck
“Pre-modern peoples found fossils too!”
“Oh cool, how did they reconstruct them? I’d like to see how they imagined the disparate pieces fitting together, it would be interesting!”
[pre-modern peoples, grinding down the fossils into healing powder] “… reconstruct?”
However, their appearance, especially in early sources, differ significantly from dinosaurs.
You answer this incongruence with your own argument -
you ALWAYS run into the glaring fact that no single massive fossil has ever truly been confirmed to have been identified by any ancient culture
Obviously no ancient culture was working off the exact same fossil sets we have. Each culture would have encountered disparate fossilized parts of various dinosaurs and postulated (incorrectly) from there (you know, like the first paleontologists did, and even more current paleontologists). With their histories and religions already full of bizarre and mystical creatures, and without access to centuries of fossil study, why wouldn’t ancient humans imagine a mythological monster after stumbling across a giant lizard-looking skull, claw, or even vertebrae?
I’d like to plug an old book I read as a kid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_of_Dragons_(book)
Dragons don’t exist in the fossil record because their blood contained high levels of hydrochloric acid, which in addition to being necessary for lighter-than-air flight and providing a means for combustible breath, melted all their bones shortly after their death.
Peter Dickinson posits that the dragons were basically blimp-like animals hunted to extinction in the iron age. The mythology surrounding them deviates from their actual form as they’re lost to time, which goes to explain why even though most cultures have their own visions of dragons they’re not strictly homogeneous.
Anyway, I know that’s not exactly what the meme is saying, and I don’t think Peter or I really believe in the existence of dragons. But I want to believe, and it’s fun to think about.
Also a Rankin/Bass film, one of my childhood favorites!
Just because we don’t know what they were calling dragons does not mean they (in our conceptual form) did not exist. IIRC, there are historic records of a paid royal dragon feeder, and how much food killing one provided for a town.
