00:01.00 Cpt Granarius Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of arche animals the show all about zoo archaeology with you as always is be simmonaanga and with me. Also this is episode 59 elephants or cyclops. 00:11.44 Alex A Fitzpatrick. 00:19.66 Cpt Granarius The mistaken identity of Animal bones. 00:23.88 Alex And it's a very special episode because it's one of our all case study episodes baby. 00:31.45 Cpt Granarius And if you do have that Bingo card there never was that's case study you can take it off right? there. 00:37.47 Alex I think it's funnier if we just never make a bingo card and then we just keep saying it I don't know just spitball in here or giving excuse to laziness I don't know. But yeah, so we're going to be looking at. The mistaken identity of animal bones or more formally referred to by Adrian Mayer who also coined this phrase the folklore of paleontology. So basically it's the study of kind of folklore and mythology that's associated with fossils. You know. Usually pre. Ah the formal development of paleontology and archaeology and it basically uses archaeology and folklore studies and anthropology and history to understand how past peoples thought about Alamo remains. 01:32.43 Cpt Granarius And and we like us a good like multidisciplinary discipline. 01:39.36 Alex We do like an ah inter Interdiplicary discipline. Ah, do you know how hard it's so hard to spell that hu yeah I have to always like word. 01:41.89 Cpt Granarius Did it to disciplinary disciplined. We do bingo and Tom twisters. 01:55.88 Alex Check it. What's the word. What do you call it on word spell check right? I use computers. But yes, so we might as well get to it and I feel like and it's the name kind of the name of the title the name of the title. 02:02.54 Cpt Granarius That's the ones. O. 02:14.58 Alex Doing really well today. It's the name of the episodede. So it's probably not surprising. We're going to start with the cyclops. 02:15.49 Cpt Granarius Um. 02:20.59 Cpt Granarius Um, yeah because I guess yeah that where we're gonna do this? Yes, It's an an all case study episode because we're just going to cover a variety of mythological creatures from various parts of the world and just try to figure out where sort of. The existence of this Creatureech may have originated from and whether it is from fossils or not from fossils or both. 02:44.95 Alex Yeah, and I think the cyclops story is 1 that's very well known. It's a bit of a fun fact that kind of floats around and I think either if you're not necessarily in classical studies or paleontology or archeology. You. People know about it. 03:06.35 Cpt Granarius Should have heard if anything probably like in in sort of fantasy sort of resources whether it's like novels or series I'm sure there's cyclops in there. But um, the cyclop we're good to be talking about is the the one I giant of Greek and Roman Mythology specifically 03:08.95 Alex Is. 03:24.41 Cpt Granarius Arguably most famous from homer the odysse. So of course there's the whole story where odyseus so Ulysses which one do we go with. 03:35.29 Alex You know what? you are the the the most closest to that You do it. 03:42.95 archpodnet Yeah, you're you're a Roman you know that? o. 03:43.96 Cpt Granarius I'm just gonna stick with Ulysses. Ah so ah romans hey you go finger top. Um yes, so um, at would point Ulysses. 03:49.81 Alex Greeks Romans same thing. 04:00.93 Cpt Granarius And encounter a a cyclop called Polyphemus which she does trick in a way you know like no spoilers. Go read it for yourself I'll go um. 04:09.76 Alex Spoilers were a very old piece old text you may have had time to catch up but we're spoiling it now I'm so sorry. 04:20.53 Cpt Granarius Ah, well like basically eat the the he tells and that his name is no one and then he blinds him. So then when the cyclop tries to like cry for help with the other cyclopses and ah tries to get Ulysses apprehended he keeps saying like no one took my eye out. No one took my eye out. So yeah, then work out too. Great. But fun fact. Um, we don't know exactly where those events took place but 1 like several of the locations have been put forward are in Sicily one of which very very close to where I'm from because we actually have ah was about. 04:53.39 Alex Um. 04:56.48 Cpt Granarius 20 minute drive at a push from where I'm from but we have a grot like a cave called literally polyphemus' cave. That's located directly basically underneath where the castle sits there before you think oh ah I would quite like to see that it's on private land and you can't so. 05:02.44 Alex M. 05:14.26 Alex I have seen photos of it. It's one of those things I remember very well from when I did my undergraduate in classical archeology. 05:15.93 Cpt Granarius There you go. 05:23.19 Cpt Granarius Yeah, a thing there's several sort of a because Paul of miuss is meant to be from the city. So or or the city or the settlement of the cyclopses that it's not exactly specified where so like several candidates have been put forward I think some of the at the foothills of the Etna. 05:32.15 Alex 8 05:41.67 Cpt Granarius And 1 of them is in this um guest very large village slash small town called Millatto and yeah, there's this cave right underneath the castle where the castle sits and citadel but yeah, private land so sas um, going back to cyclops properer. 05:46.32 Alex Okay. 06:00.38 Cpt Granarius Um, ohenia abel an australian paleontologist proposed in 1914 that the cyclops may have actually come from finding Dof Elephant skulls which guess what were found extensively in Sardinia and Sicily mainly in cave deposits. Um. 06:15.73 Alex And also this is something we kind of talked about already in our last episode for those of you who actually lets know all the episodes when we talked about Hannibal's elephants 06:28.67 Cpt Granarius Yes. 06:30.77 Alex Did you have to just remember that. 06:33.89 Cpt Granarius No sorry my mind went back to the was it the camels. This guys was elephants. 06:39.55 Alex Oh yes, well that was obviously the more important message that we got across in that episode. But yes, we also did talk about because obviously hannibal did bring his elephants over into the italian peninsula and there was loads of elephant skulls that they found. And 1 of the important things from that conversation was that it was kind of the first identification of elephants that were potentially extinct that they'd found which is really cool and um, it's actually stemming off of some of the investigations from the cyclope cyclops. Kind of theory where um, identification of the skulls that were found in caves that may have been seen as cyclops type creatures. Um. Was finally proposed by italian archeologists I'm not going to say it you say it's Simona thank you in 1688 who was actually like considered like a ecclesiastical archeologist in his time. 07:38.15 Cpt Granarius Givanni Justtino champi 07:49.83 Alex Yeah, the ah Italian archaeologists were really on top of kind of a lot of this early zoo archaeological investigation which is very cool. 07:59.20 Cpt Granarius Because I guess you would have made sense as well. Um, ah I mean um. 08:08.11 Cpt Granarius Sorry I'm going to start that sentence again. Um yeah I mean has been so determined whether the cyclop skulls select sort of where so derived from the finding of Dof Elephant skulls or just. 08:10.48 Alex Computer. 08:26.52 Cpt Granarius Normal sized elephant skulls. 08:28.60 Alex I Think it's specifically a species of Dwarf Elephant I Don't think they've actually got it down to a particular taxa that was my understanding at least? yeah. 08:41.13 Cpt Granarius Walks I guess you would make sense for cave deposits. So like a a lot of the pleistocene elephants found in Sicily were well very very um, but they're much smaller in size than sort of. The elephants that we have today due to sort of that island effect where the mega fauna got much much much smaller in not just in Sicily but just island environments due to it not being perhaps as much food to eat while the what we would consider so not necessarily the microphonea but the smaller fauna being. 08:55.79 Alex Um. 09:13.14 Cpt Granarius Ah, quite a bit bigger than you expect? Um, so yeah, like the elephants were actually sort of the size of ah probably a very large dog. Ah, but if you want to know more. There is a whole. We've done a whole episode on Pleistocene Mammalian remains. So. 09:31.56 Alex So this actually leads in nicely because let's be real even if they were dof Elephant skulls. They were still much bigger than say human skulls which conjures those ideas of you know a cyclops a large giant and again and just to also explain that. 09:31.79 Cpt Granarius Do check it out. 09:50.82 Alex Where the kind of nasal cavity-ish area is is where people would think is where the eye would sit because it's like so almost dead on in the skull but it also follows into our Neck. Kind of topic which is giants and we'll see a little bit of overlap as far as kind of fossil evidence for these kind of creatures so giants pretty self-explanitory and we've also kind of talked about them I think in previous episodes but they're really big guys that are found in lots of mythology. All around the world from Greek Gigantes to Nors Yoton so one of those things that you kind of just see. It's not really specific to any culture and most likely like in the cyclops case some evidence of you know. Appearances of giants is probably from people in the past seeing things like adorf elephant skull or other elephant skulls or mammoth skulls or you know even just random bones of mammoths or even whale bones obviously especially things like vertebra. Are big and even though they are particular to the animal they're from as as far as what they look like they're still roughly kind of the similar regardless of what animal you're looking like so it's kind of like if you know what? a human vertebra looks like and you see a whalebone and you've never seen a whale or you've never seen a well verteber before. 11:25.27 Alex You can understand how that kind of logic leap goes forward. 11:33.26 Alex I Thought you were chiman. 11:35.50 Cpt Granarius So well. So for instance in Crete bones of the giant orient was found and described but a good old friend pliny the elder. He's got to make a lot of appearances throughout the episode I Also feel we should be on the Bingo cards. 11:50.72 Alex Yeah. 11:53.69 Cpt Granarius Um, bones of the giant sort of palace and arrest this were also found in Rome and Mesopotamia which are based on herodotus writings going to herodotus place of Birth Greece in Samos. Ah, massive bones were excavated that may have been traced back to a mythological battle between a camel does guy know ah between the never never also on the bingo card but now then they. 12:23.59 Alex They're never going to get over that. 12:29.60 Cpt Granarius They may have found the traces of a mythological battle between Dionysus and the amazonians plutarch on the occasion says that were some were identified as dionys's giant elephants which found were likely just mastodons but still pretty cool. Epic macedon battle. 12:49.17 Alex And it's not just kind of Greece and Rome that we're looking at ah more broadly in Europe specifically kind of Northern Europe and central europe giant prehistoric bones such as mammoth bones often were collected by churches as. Proof of the kind of race that existed in the time before the flood specifically the flood that was the event that Noah's ark was created for so it's not just that kind of mythology. It's also kind of religious. Um, events and lore as well. So in 1728 british physician Hans Sloane was finally able to debunk claims of giants by identifying most of them as well and elephant remains and. Interestingly in the way that this fits into the kind of the development of not just osteology and kind of human biology but also in bioareology this was kind of part of Sloane's work in early developments in comparative anatomy as he kind of was like hey guys look at a human bone and then look at an animal bone. They're slightly different aren't they and that's kind of how he was able to debunk these claims by showing off that the human bones. 14:18.35 Alex Didn't necessarily look that much like these massive bones. They were finding even though there were some similarities they still looked very different so they were from different species which is pretty cool. 14:28.81 Cpt Granarius Such like picturing like a treaty like and like this bone is not like the other something. Yeah yeah, um. 14:32.90 Alex Yeah, now that's like 90% of like zoo archeology. So thanks, thanks to Hans Sloan 14:44.26 Cpt Granarius Um, to round off first part of case study. Um, we have a creature that we have discussed before but um, more with regards to its depictions and video games. But I guess we'll look at the actual mythological creature now and that is the Griffin chis. But those are not heard of 1 before first question is how um the second um will the Griffin are a mythological creature with body tail back of the legs of a lion and the wings are the head of an eagle sometimes it has sort of lion like digits and claws. Sometimes it's the picture of having an eagle's talentlons again much like the creatures we've discussed previously records of depictions of the gryffind are found in several parts of the world and they go back as far as ancient mesopotamia classical antiquity and ancient Egypt. Just to mention 3 what sort of brings all these places together that griffins were in general seen as powerful creatures that were often guarding treasures and speaking a treasure. What a good old friend paliny has to say about it is that Griffin. 15:55.92 Alex I Thought you were referring to pliny as the treasure. Sorry. 16:00.54 Cpt Granarius Apply is also a treasure is natural. History is absolute gold Eddie our friend pliy describes griffins as well specifically on their sort of laying habits. But griffins were said to lay eggs in burrows on the ground and these nests contained gold nuggets. 16:28.40 Alex So yeah, and not only was it a treasure as far as ah, a creature that was hiding or protecting treasure. Um, its remains were also believed to have medicinal properties which is also a recurring theme of this entire episode. So for instance in an italian folktale Griffin feathers were believed to cure blindness now as far as actual kind of fossils. It's been theorized that maybe what people thought were a griffin or maybe it's something they saw and it helped them kind of visualize what Griffin would look like. Is the remains of protoseceratops which is a lake cretaceous dinosaur. Um, so if you actually if you look what it looks like at least in sit 2 you can kind of see what they mean obviously with dinosaurs you got the little arms and the kind of big hind legs. Which kind of fits in a little bit with some depictions of griffins. Um, and I think it's a really interesting kind of connection if it was you know if it's true is that it it shows that kind of early linking of dinosaurs. Not what they thought were dinosaurs but what actually where dinosaur remains. 2 avian species or at least avian attributes. There's this idea that people in the past may have seen protoceratops and have been confused because obviously dinosaurs if you look at their bones. They're kind of a mix. They're not necessarily. You know something you look at and go oh that's a reptile. 17:59.46 Alex You know I mean so I think there's this idea that people would find protocerotops and think oh that is that a mammal is that a bird butcerotops has that kind of beak like ah thing at the top of their mouth. So you know the conclusion would be oh, it's It's both. 18:17.48 Cpt Granarius That would make sense. First said that would make sense because especially at the time you find remains of a creature that large and you think like there is no bird that it's that big that is not a thing. 18:18.10 Alex It's a hybrid creature. It also has oh sorry. 18:28.42 Alex Exactly. 18:32.12 Cpt Granarius Like so you think like okay, but it's so it it must be a mammal because all large animals are mammals Ofs Um, but it's got bird bits. So it's a mammal with bird bits. 18:42.17 Alex Yeah, and like it had you know those kind of claws which could be seen as Talons. There were elements of the body that people probably never seen before so you know protoceratops like you know the kind of stereotypical triscerotops has that kind of like crest thing. That skull Apologies. We are not paleontologists I don't know how to describe parts of a dinosaur. But um, you know people would be able to kind of correlate that with say ears you know and ah and a griffin or even like bits of the wing if they found Fragments. So. 19:19.95 Alex It's a really interesting way of seeing the logic behind you know, looking at this thing and visualizing it and it also I think fits in with what we're doing today where we have kind of over the last you know 20 years I realized dinosaurs look a lot different than what has been popularized in popular culture. And I think that'll be something. We also touch upon later in this episode. But I think we're going to take a break and when we come back, we will do more case. Studies. 19:48.39 archpodnet So perfect.