W. D. Matthew
1928
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Although the connection between the discovery of fossil bones and the development of myths of giants and monsters had been well known in the Victorian era, by the middle twentieth century, the connection was largely forgotten. This section of a lecture delivered in the course Paleontology I at the University of California in 1928 is rare surviving evidence of the claim being taught in the interwar period, perhaps because the lecturer, William D. Matthew, the former curator of the American Museum of Natural History, hailed from an earlier era and was more familiar with the Victorian fascination with fossil myths and legends than later generations. Matthew served as director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology from 1927 to 1930. His class lecturers from his first year teaching at U.C. Berkeley were published in the University of California Syllabus Series in 1928.
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SYNOPSIS OF LECTURES IN PALEONTOLOGY I
Outline and General Principles of the History of Life
CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF PALEONTOLOGY
HISTORY OF PALEONTOLOGY
A patriotic French scientist is said to have begun a textbook on chemistry with these words: "Chemistry is a French science. It was founded by Lavoisier, of immortal memory." To which, of course, his English and German confrères took violent exception. But one might say with more justice, perhaps, that paleontology is a French science, and that it was founded by the great Cuvier. It was in fact not until Cuvier's time, the first years of the nineteenth century, that there was any real science of paleontology, any systematic and scientific study of fossils, comparing them with living animals and using them as evidence upon which to build up conclusions as to the history of life.
A science does not of course grow up overnight, and there were many before Cuvier who had observed and studied fossils and speculated as to their nature and origin. Some of these speculations were shrewd and well considered, others are merely amusing in the light of present knowledge.
Primitive men in prehistoric days undoubtedly picked up fossil shells, brought them home, and used them for ornaments. Such shells have been found in ancient cave shelters and prehistoric dwellings in Europe and elsewhere. The Indians of the Middle West not uncommonly used fossil crinoid stems for beads, and it has been suggested that crinoid stems were the original wampum so generally used for currency among the Indians of the eastern states. In the Gobi desert the Andrews expedition found fragments of dinosaur eggshells, that had been pierced to use as beads, among the paleolithic flint weapons and implements at Shabarakh Usu. What the prehistoric wearers thought of them no one knows, or whether it occurred to them to speculate as to their origin. These ancient cave men and other primitive peoples certainly were occasional collectors of fossils, but one can hardly call them paleontologists or trace the beginnings of the science back to prehistoric time.
In many classic and medieval records the bones of mastodons and mammoths figure under the name of "bones of giants," and probably supported, if they did not originate, many of the myths and stories of giants that are found in the mythology of almost every race. Similarly, the stories of a prehistoric deluge that are found among the myths of so many peoples both in the Old World and the New, were very probably confirmed, if they were not suggested, by the discovery of fossil shells from the sea or high up on the slopes of mountains. This sort of thing must have happened again and again, and the various references to such discoveries that have been preserved to our day must be only a few out of many such observations. But in ancient times there was no way of preserving such specimens, and only occasionally or by accident would even the record of their discovery be preserved by any of the writers whose works have not been lost. Sometimes a fossil bone might be preserved in a medieval church or convent with some tradition of a giant based upon it. There is a record that the Emperor Augustus had the walls of his villa at Capri ornamented with bones of giants-probably mastodon or mammoth bones, possibly brought from one of the well-known Italian localities for such specimens. Leonardo da Vinci, famous artist and engineer, was familiar with fossil shells, and quite correctly explained them as the actual remains of organisms, and due, not to any temporary flood or deluge, but to the sea's having formerly covered the places where they were found. Most of his contemporaries, however, held either that they were the results of the biblical flood or else that they had been formed in the rocks like crystals and were a mere imitation of living shells or were shells in process of being created but not yet completed or freed from the rock out of which they were formed.
One must remember that people believed in spontaneous generation of lower animals in those days. Maggots were formed spontaneously in cheese,-why not shells in rocks? Similarly with fossil bones, as everyone believed in giants and few people in Europe had seen elephants, it was quite natural for large bones, too big to belong to horses or cattle, to be ascribed to giants. With these beliefs generally held-the universal deluge, prehistoric giants, spontaneous generation- and with the poor chances of preserving specimens and records, there was no opportunity for the science of paleontology to develop.
A science does not of course grow up overnight, and there were many before Cuvier who had observed and studied fossils and speculated as to their nature and origin. Some of these speculations were shrewd and well considered, others are merely amusing in the light of present knowledge.
Primitive men in prehistoric days undoubtedly picked up fossil shells, brought them home, and used them for ornaments. Such shells have been found in ancient cave shelters and prehistoric dwellings in Europe and elsewhere. The Indians of the Middle West not uncommonly used fossil crinoid stems for beads, and it has been suggested that crinoid stems were the original wampum so generally used for currency among the Indians of the eastern states. In the Gobi desert the Andrews expedition found fragments of dinosaur eggshells, that had been pierced to use as beads, among the paleolithic flint weapons and implements at Shabarakh Usu. What the prehistoric wearers thought of them no one knows, or whether it occurred to them to speculate as to their origin. These ancient cave men and other primitive peoples certainly were occasional collectors of fossils, but one can hardly call them paleontologists or trace the beginnings of the science back to prehistoric time.
In many classic and medieval records the bones of mastodons and mammoths figure under the name of "bones of giants," and probably supported, if they did not originate, many of the myths and stories of giants that are found in the mythology of almost every race. Similarly, the stories of a prehistoric deluge that are found among the myths of so many peoples both in the Old World and the New, were very probably confirmed, if they were not suggested, by the discovery of fossil shells from the sea or high up on the slopes of mountains. This sort of thing must have happened again and again, and the various references to such discoveries that have been preserved to our day must be only a few out of many such observations. But in ancient times there was no way of preserving such specimens, and only occasionally or by accident would even the record of their discovery be preserved by any of the writers whose works have not been lost. Sometimes a fossil bone might be preserved in a medieval church or convent with some tradition of a giant based upon it. There is a record that the Emperor Augustus had the walls of his villa at Capri ornamented with bones of giants-probably mastodon or mammoth bones, possibly brought from one of the well-known Italian localities for such specimens. Leonardo da Vinci, famous artist and engineer, was familiar with fossil shells, and quite correctly explained them as the actual remains of organisms, and due, not to any temporary flood or deluge, but to the sea's having formerly covered the places where they were found. Most of his contemporaries, however, held either that they were the results of the biblical flood or else that they had been formed in the rocks like crystals and were a mere imitation of living shells or were shells in process of being created but not yet completed or freed from the rock out of which they were formed.
One must remember that people believed in spontaneous generation of lower animals in those days. Maggots were formed spontaneously in cheese,-why not shells in rocks? Similarly with fossil bones, as everyone believed in giants and few people in Europe had seen elephants, it was quite natural for large bones, too big to belong to horses or cattle, to be ascribed to giants. With these beliefs generally held-the universal deluge, prehistoric giants, spontaneous generation- and with the poor chances of preserving specimens and records, there was no opportunity for the science of paleontology to develop.
