00:00.00 Alex And we are back with Archeo Animals episode 59 We're talking about the folklore of paleontology and zooareology and normally would say this is the Q studies part but this whole episode's been case studies so you should be in great ecstasy this whole time because it's the best. Been The best part of the podcast this whole time but more you on to sang. 00:27.75 Cpt Granarius Right? So I mean we've covered ah some pretty like well known heavy hitters in mythology and I think we're probably going to keep it that way. Ah because along this with Cyclops and unicorns. Ah, we have the. 00:00.73 Cpt Granarius Mythological creature that's found literally in every part of the world throughout history and that is the dragon. Um, yeah, literally anywhere from medieval england to China dragons are everywhere although they're mostly dinosaur fossils. Um. There in sorry um in China for instance dragon bones ah long used for Tcm referred. 00:36.00 Alex Yep. 00:47.56 Alex Who. 00:59.24 Alex So no, we can go. 01:12.27 Alex Traditional traditional Chinese medicine Sorry that's what I want to just point out. Yes, sorry I didn't I realized I hadn't put the ah the actual name and just put the acronym. Sorry. 01:17.96 Cpt Granarius Should I start the sentence again. 00:47.20 Cpt Granarius Yeah, um, but so for instance in China dragon bones long used for traditional chinese medicine refer to mine fossils from China's massive fossil beds ah usually of various prestoric species which are collectively called long in Europe ah, the dragon remains are likely dinosaur tracks in places like the Rhine Valley in Germany which were again interpreted as dragons. 01:58.10 Alex And in speaking of Europe in Austria amon the dragon. Yeah, aiming the dragon aim the giant sorry going met the giants real quick aimmon the giant was said to have killed a dragon and have kept the dragon tongue. 01:59.82 Cpt Granarius Little. 02:16.87 Alex As a trophy and this was actually held in a local monastery for years and then it turned out. It was a swordfish nose. So not. 02:24.83 Cpt Granarius What those as indeed the actual sword bit of the swordfish. How. 02:28.43 Alex Yeah, yeah, which I couldn't think of what it was called so I just wrote nose I can see it especially if the idea is that it's so old. It's desiccated. You know I think even if you don't I think even if people don't. 02:34.43 Cpt Granarius How does that look like a tongue but. 02:48.00 Alex No, you know the processes of Typhonomy and the processes of de ah decomposition I think you would make that connection in your head of like oh it's old So it's like a little shriveled and smaller Maybe and it's just the tongue. It's like it could be. 03:01.80 Cpt Granarius I All like the the selfish things they're really long is. 02:40.58 Cpt Granarius I mean yes to if I when you do say dragon it does conjure up mostly the the images of dragons in medieval england I guess is what it's ah in the common imagination. What tends to pop up. Um, they are again also in Austria in the later medieval period. Ah, dragon skull was found in the fourteenth century and eventually used to make um like as a model to make a dragon statue statue in claggenffor in the sixteenth century which actually turned out to be a woolly rhinocerus. 03:06.78 Alex I mean Also you know conceptualizations of Dragons have even though they're more or less the same. They've changed over time and throughout cultures. It could be that you know it was a bit more of a serpentine type of Dragon they were thinking about. 03:53.76 Cpt Granarius Cherodontantiquia antiquitatis. 03:22.30 Cpt Granarius And again like depending on the depictions as well like they do like ah dragons do sometimes have little like tusks and horns wants the at the end of the snout which again the woolly Rhino it kind of matches up. Um. 03:54.92 Alex I Could see that as well though like big Mandible big chunky skull. 04:09.30 Alex E. 04:20.00 Cpt Granarius You get in ancient Greece take it back couple of thousand years somewhat apolonius of Tiana travelled to modern day India and described dragons culture. You seen a pattern now like the greeks tend to think that a lot of the mythological creatures are actually living in India somewhere there seems to be a thing. 04:38.15 Alex Um, if. 04:39.58 Cpt Granarius Um, but the the dragon skulls that he was describing are likely coming from a variety of an extinct species of elephants and giraffes including um, ellefasi sudricus just the the extinct elephant species and. Yeah twotin species of giraffes ah the Girafo Erics and the sivaharium. 04:37.48 Cpt Granarius Um, ock. 05:06.80 Alex Simona Can you do me a favor and are you able to look up what your foex looks like we just need a live reaction to this if possible. 05:25.43 Alex It's It's just a big chunky giraffe. 05:27.38 archpodnet I Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do just technical music while we're waiting for the reaction and it's a chunky giraff. Can you send I want see the chunky draft. How do you spill it. 05:28.11 Cpt Granarius Now I think it looks. 05:05.87 Cpt Granarius It's um g I r a double f okay ERYX. 05:31.20 Alex Is a big chunky dress. 05:54.28 archpodnet Which ok Y E x. 05:57.75 Cpt Granarius Ah, it looks like a mix between a giraffe and there's this. Ah this animal that this extant animal that looks like it. It should be extinct So I'm describing it very poorly. Um. 06:02.12 archpodnet Oh yes. 06:12.60 archpodnet It's like a giraffe in like high gravity. 06:13.34 Alex Yeah, it's like you know when you you get those like inflatable animals. That's what it looks like it. 06:19.47 archpodnet Yeah, it's like it's like it's like a giraffe that you haven't like yeah you haven't blown up the whole way like it's a deflated giraffe I see that. 06:30.60 Alex It's amazing I Love it. I've never seen this before my life and I'm so happy that I have it's made my day truly to look at that and I just wanted to share it with you.? All and all you out there listening to this episode also look it up and have have a little treat. But yeah. I Mean clearly you can understand why that would look like a dragon skull. 06:53.65 Cpt Granarius Yeah I mean I can see that so I'm trying to find out the name of the animal that it reminds me of partially. 07:00.14 Alex Is it also a draft. 07:07.29 Alex Is it a oh no, it's gone. So while you while you think about that I'll move on to the next button you. 07:14.76 Cpt Granarius Yes, because I was trying to find this animal I ended up on Bush babies instead which is really not what I'm after so please. 07:24.18 Alex So yeah, similar pretty similar actually to dragons we have sea serpents the the dragons of the water as folks like this say no one. No one says that that's just me. And it's also like dragons they're found in a variety of folkal around the world from Scandinavia to Mesopotamia I believe we've talked a little bit about it in our episode odd norse mythology so you can go listen to that. 07:51.12 Cpt Granarius Um, National treasure. Um. 07:51.93 Alex But yeah, there's a couple of instances of sea serpents found in antiquity and it it's believed that maybe fake serpents were made in antiquity by stretching out and combining several snakes skins. Apparently you can stretch a snakes skin out really long. It's a very. Useful thing I learned today about that. But I guess it makes sense. There was a bit of a kind of tourism in antiquity that that could have been a bit of a grift for with unicorn horns and. Also pliny the elder. He's back. He's better than ever folks. 08:38.20 Alex Are you? okay. 08:39.80 Cpt Granarius This just thinking about how the Vesuvius robbed us of playing the elder. 08:44.99 Alex Yeah, anyway, as always his writings are illuminating as usual and he described the discovery of the remains of the serpent that Perseus killed to save Andromeda. And 58 Bc which of course was probably a whale or shark bones as ah, it was about forty feet in length. Um it may have also been a hybrid creation of whale and other fossil bones. It's not really sure. And there's loads of other kind of stories in antiquity of kind of serpent sightings that were probably you know, beached whales carcasses like that that people haven't really seen before. But interestingly this kind of phenomenon of sea serpents isn't just something that happened in the past even in close, not modern day but kind of closer to contemporary times like the Nineteenth century. Um, we there were still reports. Sea serpent sightings and kind of recent research has been done on this suggests that seaserpent sightings may have actually been influenced by the discovery of fossilized marine reptiles such as pleosaurs in the eighteen hundreds. So kind of. 10:11.82 Alex Reversa What we've been talking about this whole time. So rather than people seeing a fossil and making up or you know using it to support the development of a folklore Rick Creature a mythological creature sea serpents which have already kind of exist in lore before. Ah, have actually kind of melded into the this kind of popular conception because of the widespread Discovery of you know pleistosaurs and creators like that because you know in. 10:47.14 Cpt Granarius Because I guess the scientific discoveries of sort of um, found it way into like people's imagination. So as you said we see the reverse where the evidence was molded almost to fit the theory. 10:50.48 Alex Newspapers and reports the were described as you know ancient Marine reptiles with long let necks. So this research that was done saw that over time after these discovery of these fossils was publicized. Sea Serpent reports were less about describing them as eel-like creatures which is apparently what they used to be described as ah prior to the eighteen hundreds but they soon were described as having long necks Allah you're kind of messy. Which is really interesting. 11:42.42 Alex Yeah, no, it's it's really interesting and ah, what's also interesting is at the same time. Ah Richard Owen who was a british paleontologist probably more well known for being the person who coined the word dinosaur had actually theorized at this time. That maybe people's sightings of sea serpents were actually evidence that there were still surviving extinct animals like plesosaurs ichthyosaurs and Mososares which I mean sounds silly but you know. You don't know. 12:19.47 Cpt Granarius Do but to a yeah hybrid ous. 12:21.57 Alex And to kind of yeah we ah have 1 more hybrid hoax here as so to kind of wrap this up in eighteen forty Five Albert Coke came to New York city and claim to have a sea serpent that he caught near New England called the hydra aos or something I don't know say samo you say nice I don't know it's not real. That's the point. It's not real. It was a hoax it was made up. They took. 12:50.48 Cpt Granarius Hydrocals. 12:57.23 Alex Ah, Prestoric will and said that was a sea serpent. Apparently even like the flippers were made out of shells so he tried and I believe this was not his only hoax I think he did another. 12:57.23 Cpt Granarius Click basilosaru. 13:07.27 Cpt Granarius I mean he tried he tried. 12:47.34 Cpt Granarius Before we move on any further I have some answers with regards the the giraff because what they look like some recognize um because what you reminded of is it if ah, a giraffe and a no copy at a baby. 13:05.13 Cpt Granarius You know, know happy look it up I um, very mean of me described it as an animal that looks like it should be extinct but um, because just I just sort of just that the way it looks is sort of like the coloring in the stripes. It looks like a depiction of an animal that's gone extinct due to overhunting two hundred years ago 13:16.65 Alex Hoax So I mean again, you kind of respect the grind to the grift Grif grind but didn't really work. 13:36.30 Alex Huge huge breaking news. Ah okay, that makes sense. Yes. 14:04.36 Cpt Granarius But thankfullyfully your cap's still alive. Ah, unreatively. Well maybe. 14:04.60 Alex Ah, the ah is the a copy the one that looks like they put on a Zebra pants. Yes, see. 14:11.15 Cpt Granarius Yes, and interestingly even though it does look Zebra like in terms of coloring the giraffe. It is closest relative. So yeah. 14:19.59 Alex It's closely related to the giraffe. Do you want to know how I know that because I have gone multiple times to Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park 14:32.22 Cpt Granarius This system. 14:34.98 Alex And that's a fun fact. They tell you a lot on the Safari ride. Thank you Disney I have a ph d. 14:42.49 Cpt Granarius Oh it turns out that it turns out the Oca is actually quite endangered may lead due to habit at loss. So please bear a thought for the O kapi. 14:49.15 Alex You They're very, they're beautiful. Maybe not as beautiful as that chunky giraffe that's extinct but you know not everyone can be perfect and that's fine. So yeah, we've talked this whole episode about all these. 15:06.11 Cpt Granarius Um, I mean it's just one of those things of like how long's a piece of string. How do you quantify that. 15:08.52 Alex Wild mythical creatures all these really interesting stories and theories of how people in the past may have made these connections and have used the past fossils to kind of develop and support mythologies and things like that. So. That's great. That's amazing was it actually this influential on mythology though. Apparently this was actually a bit not just like contentious like other subjects in these fields but there seems to be some pushback. I didn't actually know that before we did this episode. Yeah, it makes sense and I So yeah, not everyone is convinced I think everyone agrees for the most part that you know there was definitely some inspiration and it makes sense and and that you know. 15:55.57 Cpt Granarius Yeah, because I mean as we discussed it before like it if it is related to the discovery of skeletal you may it remains of say like x thing to mega fauna I mean it could also sort like go 1 or two ways you could be you find um, an elephant skull. 16:06.13 Alex Someone would have found something and be like oh that looks like X Y Ed but there are some academics specifically classicists and also paleontologists who've kind of called for maybe a bit of caution in subscribing all folklore to this. You know, not necessarily going to the full extreme of you know, all folklore is based off of fossils or whatever. Um you know? And yeah. 16:54.35 Cpt Granarius You find that bizarre so you decide that it's a cyclops and here that the mythos of the cyclops is born or it could well be the other way around as it was sort of the case for sea serpents in Europe. We're actually like the belief was already there and originated elsewhere and then the discovery of remains is almost bent to fit the theory you already had so that mythology was already in place and then you find the scalletal remains and you go oh you see that is proof of something that was already. There. 17:23.46 Alex Yeah, so kind of real quickly to kind of not necessarily debunk some of the fossil associations we talked about but just to provide some counter evidence. So with regards to the cyclops. You know people have pointed out that there's just no written record of ancient Greeks. Actually finding the skulls that we've assumed they would also assume to be cyclops. Um, and also there's this notion that depictions of cyclops and other artwork and in descriptions are often too human-like to account for all features of an elephant skull like tusks. And whatnot and also not every cyclops actually had just one eye so it could be again that kind of the other way around that smonan was talking about as far as the griffin theory with ah pro protoceratops. Um. The problem with that theory is that it ignores earlier lore from western asia from as early as the fourth century. Ah sorry the fourth millennium bc um and these kind of depictions. The griffins don't actually match the fossils. So. There's one suggestion that maybe the greeks picked up on western asian war rather than fossil evidence. Um, and there's also this idea that gryffins are better explained as being developed from hybrid creatures of living animals instead and you don't necessarily need to have fossils to explain them and again like Cyclops. 18:55.85 Alex Doesn't really seem to be ancient Greek writings referencing these fossils and finally with dragons. The main issue is that modern day assumption of dragons equaling dinosaurs mainly depend on modern day conceptualizations of dragons as we discussed earlier ancient. Depictions of dragons were way more varied and not always very dragon-like so at the end of the day who knows but it's interesting I think it's in regardless I think it's an interesting thought experiment and I think it's also an interesting way to think about how people in the past looked at stuff that they may not necessarily had the tools. And knowledge to kind of investigate. 19:37.13 Cpt Granarius Yeah, so what do you think? let us know. 19:41.74 Alex Yeah, because we are on Twitter at archaeoanals we are on the archaeology podcast network dot com slash animals that's where you can find us online but you can also find us wherever you get your podcasts make sure you like you subscribe you tell your friends to subscribe. Let us know if there are any other episodes that you'd like us to cover. We love doing recommendations. Our last episode was one and yeah I think that is it I'm going to think about the divine chicken and get hungry I don't know about you guys. But as always. It's been elks. Patrick and we will see you next time. 20:19.92 Cpt Granarius I' see on for La by.