What Did Ancient People Think of Fossils?

Some of the first evidence of humans interacting with fossils comes from Europe during the Pleistocene Epoch. Fossil echinoid expert Kenneth J. McNamara describes how fossils were used and collected by prehistoric people in his book, The Star-Crossed Stone (2010). McNamara details that possibly as far back as 400,000 years ago, an early Neanderthal selected a chunk of flint with a curious pattern; five symmetrical lines that formed a star-shape. After two precise blows to the flint, the third hit broke part of that pattern away. A knapper (or flint toolmaker) would usually repeat this on the other side, but that day they stopped, seemingly knowing they could damage the pattern more.

Unbeknownst to them, they had preserved a sea urchin fossil. And this is just one of several examples of tools made by both Neanderthals and Paleolithic Homo Sapiens that the knappers deliberately crafted around a fossil’s pattern. "[T]hey, too, seem to have had an inordinate fondness for fossil sea urchins, and been bitten by the collecting bug," McNamara writes.

These one-eyed giants have been written about in Greek and Roman mythology since at least the fifth century B.C., associated mostly with Sicily and the Aeolian islands. But 200,000 years before the islands were inhabited by ancient Greeks, they were the stomping grounds of mammoths.

Fossils of these elephant relatives are often found in caves, and their skulls are a bit confusing at first glance. The large hole on the front of the skull is actually for the trunk and nasal cavity, but it's easy to see how it could be interpreted as an eye socket. So, it’s possible that mammoth skulls and bones were thought to be from giant cyclops. 

Another theory links fossils of the early horned dinosaur, Protoceratops, with ancient Middle Eastern legends of the griffin, a winged bird-lion. Developed by historian and classical folklorist Adrienne Mayor in 1989, it proposed that griffins were the ancient interpretations of dinosaur bones. Thousands of years ago, Mayor suggests, Scythian nomads prospecting for gold in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert encountered Protoceratops bones. Stories of this beast traveled along trade routes, eventually inspiring griffin stories and art. 

However, some scholars threw cold water on this theory. In a 2024 article, titled "Did the horned dinosaur Protoceratops inspire the griffin?", researchers poked several holes in Mayor’s griffin-Protoceratops hypothesis. For starters, Protoceratops were located hundreds of miles away from any known gold deposits. And even if these nomads had been near the fossils, it's unlikely they would have actually seen them. Usually, only a small portion of the fragile bone is visible and the rest needs to be dug out. The authors concluded that "No logical chain of inference connects Protoceratops, or any other extinct Asian reptile, with ancient griffin folklore.”

Possibly the most famous creature from folklore, dragons have a questionable connection to dinosaurs. It's highly unlikely the dragon myth was created by ancient people who encountered dinosaur bones. However, we do know Chinese scholars used "dragon bone" as a general term for various types of fossils, including bones and teeth from at least 60 species of mammals, like Gigantopithecus, the biggest ape that ever lived. Dragon bones were used in Chinese traditional medicine as far back as the third century B.C. to treat a wide range of conditions from anxiety to disembowelment. By the 12th century B.C., dragon bones were a hot commodity, with massive amounts being sold in drugstores throughout China; by the late 1800s, they eventually began being exported to other countries.

Europe also has a robust dragon folklore. In 2020, a new theory on the origin of dragons emerged, based on an unexpected fossil...a plant. This plant, Lepidodendron, is known as a ‘scale tree’ because its leaf scars on the trunk resemble diamond-shaped scales. That scaly appearance led researchers to hypothesize about whether Lepidodendron was behind some dragon mythology. So, they compared the location of Lepidodendron fossil sites with the places where dragon folktales originated, looking for overlap. Surprisingly, many of the points matched. For example, the medieval legend of the Sockburn Worm tells of a dragon that terrorized Durham, England, until it was slayed by Sir John Conyers in 1063. And this fight took place just a few miles from a rock exposure with Lepidodendron fossils. The authors do caution that while many dragon myths seem to correspond to these plant localities, others do not. This suggests that there may be more than one dragon origin.

Throughout the Middle Ages, people continued to find fossils and create origin stories for them. Fossilized shark teeth, called glossopetrae, or "tongue stones," were associated with the the New Testament story of Saint Paul, who was bitten by a snake after being shipwrecked on the Mediterranean island of Malta. When people later found fossilized shark teeth, they imagined Saint Paul cursing the snakes and turning their tongues to stone. Glossopetrae became coveted for their perceived protection against snake bites and poisons. 

People walking along the Yorkshire Coast of England also found what appeared to be coiled up snakes that turned into stone. They referred to these as "snakestones." In a seventh-century story from the town of Whitby, Saxon, Abbess Saint Hilda needed to rid the area of snakes before establishing an Abbey. So, she cast a spell that turned the snakes to stone and then threw them off the cliffs. Today, we recognize snakestones as the fossilized shells of ammonites, an extinct relative of squids, octopus and nautilus, which they resemble.

Ammonites also show up in some Indigenous cultures of North America, where fossil knowledge is passed down through generations. For example, so-called Buffalo Stones, formed when the chambers of an ammonite are filled with sediment, making a cast. Then the shell erodes away, and the casts separate into individual segments that can look like tiny bison. 

Buffalo Stones have been recovered at archaeological sites associated with various tribes, but none more so than the Nitsitapii (Blackfoot). The Nitsitapii word for these bison-shaped ammonite segments is Iniskim, and they are frequently found at sites over 1,000 years old. Based on evidence from oral traditions, interviews and observational research, Iniskim played an important role in Nitsitapii society. 

Iniskim were originally used “as part of a pre-hunt ritual that produced the power to insure a successful hunt by charming bison," writes archaeologist Trevor Peck in a 2002 paper. "The power associated with lniskim resulted in their customary inclusion in Nitsitapii personal, healing, sacred tipi and ceremonial bundles.”  

The layers that preserve ammonites are exposed in riverbanks within the ancestral homelands of the Nitsitapii and other tribes. At one spot along the Bow River in Alberta, Canada, near the Siksika Nation reserve, fossils have fallen down a steep cliff from 115 feet above the river. This location is known as The-Place-of-Falling-off-Without-Excuse in Nitsitappii oral history. Today, fossil hunters call it Baculite Beach.