Ancient Fossil Finds and Mythical Creatures Part 2: The Bones of Heroes and Monsters - TPM 29

In this continuation of The Past Macabre’s exploration of fossils and myth, host Stephanie Rice examines how ancient cultures interpreted fossil discoveries and connected them to tales of monsters, heroes, and gods.

Through oral traditions, archaeological finds, and texts from the Mexica (Aztecs) and Maya of Mesoamerica, the Hopi, Zuni, and Dine (Navajo) of the American Southwest, pre-Christian Ireland, and Classical Greece, this episode explores what these stories tell us about humanity’s enduring curiosity about the natural world.

Offline Sources Cited:

Bierhorst, John. 1992. History and Mythology of the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca. University of Arizona Press.

Mayor, Adrienne. 2000. The First Fossil Hunters. Princeton University Press.

Newman, Sarah E. 2016. Sharks in the Jungle: Real and Imagined Sea Monsters of theMaya. Antiquity 90(354):1522–1536.

Romano, M., 2024. Fossils as a source of myths, legends and folklore. Rend. Online Soc. Geol. It, 62, pp.103-117.

Solounias, Nikos and Adrienne Mayor. 2004. ANCIENT REFERENCES TO THE FOSSILS FROM THE LAND OF PYTHAGORAS. Earth Sciences History 23(2):283–296.

Transcripts

• Transcript

Links

• See photos related to episode topics on Instagram

• Loving the macabre lore? Treat your host to a coffee!

• Website | More information about the Hopi from the Hopi

• Website | More information about the Zuni from the Zuni

• Website | More information about the Dine (Navajo) from the Dine

• Website | Paleontology of ancestral lands of the Hopi, Zuni, and Dine - Petrified Forest NP

• Website | One woolly mammoth's journey at the end of the Ice Age (NPR's coverage of Élmayųujey’eh, a very well preserved wooly mammoth found near one of the oldest sites of human habitation in Alaska)

• Open Access Article | A Kachina by Any Other Name: Linguistically Contextualizing Native American Collections

• Open Access Article | Pleistocene record of mammals and pollen from Mexico (Las Tazas, Valsequillo, Puebla) and their paleoenvironmental interpretation

• Open Access Book | The Popol Vuh: The Mythic and Heroic Sagas of the Kichés of Central America

• Open Access Book | The Codex Borgia (Pre-European text of the Aztec deities, rituals, and calendar)

• Open Access Book | The Eskimo about Bering strait (19th century ethnography documenting Yup'ik and Inuit culture)

• Open Access Book | Traces of the Elder Faiths in Ireland (19th century ethnography of pre-Christian beliefs in Ireland)

• Video | Megaloceros the Giant Deer ~ with Dr Roman Croitor (information about Irish elk from Evolution Soup)

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