Place names describing fossils in oral traditions

Abstract

AbstractFolk explanations of notable geological features, including fossils, are found around the world. Observations of fossil exposures (bones, footprints, etc.) led to place names for rivers, mountains, valleys, mounds, caves, springs, tracks, and other geological and palaeontological sites. Some names describe prehistoric remains and/or refer to traditional interpretations of fossils. This paper presents case studies of fossil-related place names in ancient and modern Europe and China, and Native American examples in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Evidence for the earliest known fossil-related place names comes from ancient Greco-Roman and Chinese literature. The earliest documented fossil-related place name in the New World was preserved in a written text by the Spanish in the sixteenth century. In many instances, fossil geonames are purely descriptive; in others, however, the mythology about a specific fossil locality survives along with the name: in still other cases the geomythology is suggested by recorded traditions about similar palaeontological phenomena. The antiquity and continuity of some fossil-related place names shows that people had observed and speculated about mineralized traces of extinct life forms long before modern scientific investigations. Traditional place names can reveal heretofore unknown geomyths as well as new geologically-important sites.