Fossil Legends of the First Americans

Adrienne Mayor (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

488 Seiten

2007
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-13049-1 (ISBN)

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Beginning in the East, with its Ice Age monsters, and ending in the West, where dinosaurs lived and died, this book examines the discoveries of enormous bones and uses of fossils for medicine, hunting magic, and spells. It represents a major step forward in our understanding of how humans made sense of fossils before evolutionary theory developed.

The burnt-red badlands of Montana's Hell Creek are a vast graveyard of the Cretaceous dinosaurs that lived 68 million years ago. Those hills were, much later, also home to the Sioux, the Crows, and the Blackfeet, the first people to encounter the dinosaur fossils exposed by the elements. What did Native Americans make of these stone skeletons, and how did they explain the teeth and claws of gargantuan animals no one had seen alive? Did they speculate about their deaths? Did they collect fossils? Beginning in the East, with its Ice Age monsters, and ending in the West, where dinosaurs lived and died, this richly illustrated and elegantly written book examines the discoveries of enormous bones and uses of fossils for medicine, hunting magic, and spells. Well before Columbus, Native Americans observed the mysterious petrified remains of extinct creatures and sought to understand their transformation to stone. In perceptive creation stories, they visualized the remains of extinct mammoths, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine creatures as Monster Bears, Giant Lizards, Thunder Birds, and Water Monsters.
Their insights, some so sophisticated that they anticipate modern scientific theories, were passed down in oral histories over many centuries. Drawing on historical sources, archaeology, traditional accounts, and extensive personal interviews, Adrienne Mayor takes us from Aztec and Inca fossil tales to the traditions of the Iroquois, Navajos, Apaches, Cheyennes, and Pawnees. Fossil Legends of the First Americans represents a major step forward in our understanding of how humans made sense of fossils before evolutionary theory developed.

Adrienne Mayor, an independent scholar of natural history folklore and the early history of science, is the author of "The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times" (Princeton) and "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs" (Overlook).

List of Illustrations ix Geological Time Scale xv Acknowledgments xvii Preface xxi INTRODUCTION: Marsh Monsters of Big Bone Lick 1 Chapter 1: The Northeast: Giants, Great Bears, and Grandfather of the Buffalo 32 Chapter 2: New Spain: Bones of Fear and Birds of Terror 73 Chapter 3: The Southwest: Fossil Fetishes and Monster Slayers 106 Chapter 4: The Prairies: Fossil Medicine and Spirit Animals 168 Chapter 5: The High Plains: Thunder Birds, Water Monsters, and Buffalo-Calling Stones 220 CONCLUSION: Common Ground 296 APPENDIX: Fossil Frauds and Specious Legends 332 Notes 347 Bibliography 407 Index 429

Erscheint lt. Verlag	18.3.2007
Zusatzinfo	6 Maps
Verlagsort	New Jersey
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 235 mm
Gewicht	482 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik
Themenwelt	Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Mineralogie / Paläontologie
ISBN-10	0-691-13049-3 / 0691130493
ISBN-13	978-0-691-13049-1 / 9780691130491
Zustand	Neuware