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Fossil Legends of the First Americans / Adrienne Mayor.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2013]Copyright date: ©2005Edition: Course BookDescription: 1 online resource (488 p.) : 98 halftones. 2 line illus. 1 table. 6 mapsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691130491
  • 9781400849314
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 398.36 398/.36
LOC classification:
  • E58
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- Geological Time Scale -- Acknowledgments -- Preface: HELL CREEK, MONTANA, SUMMER 1998 -- INTRODUCTION: Marsh Monsters of Big Bone Lick -- CHAPTER 1. The Northeast: Giants, Great Bears, and Grandfather of the Buffalo -- CHAPTER 2. New Spain: Bones of Fear and Birds of Terro -- CHAPTER 3. The Southwest: Fossil Fetishes and Monster Slayers -- CHAPTER 4. The Prairies: Fossil Medicine and Spirit Animals -- CHAPTER 5. The High Plains: Thunder Birds, Water Monsters, and Buffalo-Calling Stones -- CONCLUSION: Common Ground -- APPENDIX: Fossil Frauds and Specious Legends -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: 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.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400849314

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- Geological Time Scale -- Acknowledgments -- Preface: HELL CREEK, MONTANA, SUMMER 1998 -- INTRODUCTION: Marsh Monsters of Big Bone Lick -- CHAPTER 1. The Northeast: Giants, Great Bears, and Grandfather of the Buffalo -- CHAPTER 2. New Spain: Bones of Fear and Birds of Terro -- CHAPTER 3. The Southwest: Fossil Fetishes and Monster Slayers -- CHAPTER 4. The Prairies: Fossil Medicine and Spirit Animals -- CHAPTER 5. The High Plains: Thunder Birds, Water Monsters, and Buffalo-Calling Stones -- CONCLUSION: Common Ground -- APPENDIX: Fossil Frauds and Specious Legends -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

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http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

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.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jul 2021)