{"product_id":"the-first-fossil-hunters-paleontology-in-greek-and-roman-times","title":"The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe fascinating story of how the fossils of dinosaurs  mammoths  and other extinct animals influenced some of the most spectacular creatures of classical mythology  Griffins  Centaurs  Cyclopes  and Giantsthese fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation  she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in factin the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.  As Mayor shows  the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings  and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence  concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin  for example  sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners  who  passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains  encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground.  Like their modern counterparts  the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy  the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries  Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology. As Peter Dodson writes in his Foreword  \"Paleontologists  classicists  and historians as well as natural history buffs will read this book with the greatest of delightsurprises abound.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44965316919349,"sku":"ByrdShop_0691058636","price":31.74,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780691058634.jpg?v=1770492695","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-first-fossil-hunters-paleontology-in-greek-and-roman-times","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}