Fossil Myths: Cyclopes, Griffins, & Magic Fairy Bread
Before modern science, what evidence did people use to help explain the inexplicable? For some things -- the fossil record! Today we're looking for griffins, cyclopes, magical bread and enchanted...
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Georges Cuvier is known by many as the father of modern paleontology.One of his most notable contributions to the world is establishing the concept that speciescan, and do, go extinct.He first presented this idea in 1796 at the National Institute in France in a paper thatshowed how living elephants were anatomically much different than the fossil bones foundin the region.Up until that point it was assumed that those animals still wandered different parts ofthe earth and had somehow evaded detection.Even Thomas Jefferson told Lewis and Clark to keep an eye out for any living mastodonson their journey to map out the western United States.But it’s not as though fossils weren’t a part of world culture and history beforethe 18th century- we humans have been using t...
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Georges Cuvier is known by many as the father of modern paleontology.One of his most notable contributions to the world is establishing the concept that speciescan, and do, go extinct.He first presented this idea in 1796 at the National Institute in France in a paper thatshowed how living elephants were anatomically much different than the fossil bones foundin the region.Up until that point it was assumed that those animals still wandered different parts ofthe earth and had somehow evaded detection.Even Thomas Jefferson told Lewis and Clark to keep an eye out for any living mastodonson their journey to map out the western United States.But it’s not as though fossils weren’t a part of world culture and history beforethe 18th century- we humans have been using t...
