The First Fossil Hunters

The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times is a 2000 work on paleoarcheology by Stanford University professor Adrienne Mayor. It was reissued in 2011.

Summary

Drawing on primary Greco-Roman sources and building on recent archeological and paleontological research, Mayor argues that the eastern mediterranean and Near East presents evidence of massive late Pleistocene megafuana. These "monsters" may represent extinct branches of Elephantidae or perhaps fossil repltiles. Mayor analyzes Greek myth and local folklore while critiquing the merits of linnean taxonomy in categorizing fossil remains. She argues that Greek thinkers like Herodetus employed their own consistent methods of research and that modern understandings of historical synthesis and peer review may underestimate the fidelity of ancient thinkers.