It’s a serious conversation that’s been had amongst historians, anthropologists, archeologists and, of course, paleontologists. It’s entirely possible that the dragon myth comes from ancient civilizations uncovering dinosaurs like the T-Rex and imagining what they believe it looked like when alive. They had no concept that it had been dead for 300 million years and didn’t exist alongside humans.
It really makes sense. Another one is that when they uncovered skulls of ancient mastodons, they though they were the skulls of Cyclops, because the trunk is located over a giant nasal/sinus opening in the skull, that they assumed was a single eye socket. If you had never seen, or even heard of, a creature with a trunk, a Cyclops would be the obvious assumption.
It is weird for them to guess it was a reptile of some kind though. How would they know that? By comparing to other contemporary reptile skeletons? That seems very advanced.
That has always struck me as odd. And humans and dinosaurs have never existed at the same time so it’s not a question of old legends filtering down.
Yes I know birds are technically dinosaurs please don’t comment to correct me on that.
It’s a serious conversation that’s been had amongst historians, anthropologists, archeologists and, of course, paleontologists. It’s entirely possible that the dragon myth comes from ancient civilizations uncovering dinosaurs like the T-Rex and imagining what they believe it looked like when alive. They had no concept that it had been dead for 300 million years and didn’t exist alongside humans.
It really makes sense. Another one is that when they uncovered skulls of ancient mastodons, they though they were the skulls of Cyclops, because the trunk is located over a giant nasal/sinus opening in the skull, that they assumed was a single eye socket. If you had never seen, or even heard of, a creature with a trunk, a Cyclops would be the obvious assumption.
I’ve always thought the same thing
A man of culture, I see
It is weird for them to guess it was a reptile of some kind though. How would they know that? By comparing to other contemporary reptile skeletons? That seems very advanced.
That has always struck me as odd. And humans and dinosaurs have never existed at the same time so it’s not a question of old legends filtering down.
Yes I know birds are technically dinosaurs please don’t comment to correct me on that.
It looks like a giant lizard skull so all they need to make the link is dead lizard skeletons to refer to?