The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times (review)

Abstract

This book is a study of the Greek and Roman discovery and interpretation of fossil remains. Adrienne Mayor argues that the development [End Page 119] of many mythological animals (griffins, centaurs, giants, cyclopes, and so forth) was influenced by the ancients' attempts to explain the large fossilized bones that littered their landscape. Mayor argues, for example, that griffins are derived from the bones of Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus in ancient Scythia (chapter 1); that the monster on a Corinthian vase (fig. 4.2) is an effective representation of a fossil skull weathering out of a cliff; and that the bones identified by the ancients as those of giants and mythical heroes were in fact fossil bones (chapter 3). Mayor writes entertainingly, and this book has almost more of the tone of a voyage of discovery than a scholarly work. In some places, this is rather frustrating; in particular, I found references to both ancient works and modern scholarship sometimes lacking in the footnotes (e.g., who is the "Roman poet" on p. 141; and try matching the research on pp. 165-66 with the sources in n. 4. Surely more than one endnote per page is permissible!). Given the patchy nature of her ancient sources, much of the book is necessarily speculative, perhaps rather more so than Mayor indicates in her text. But her research is intensive, her evidence strong, and her conclusions (by and large) persuasive.