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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from housetop works

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Speaker 1: dot com. The Hunt Gross Tempers. It's been three days

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Speaker 1: since you last caught the trail of deer through the wilderness,

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Speaker 1: and your hunger, the hunger of the tribe, mounts toward

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Speaker 1: a breaking point. And so, with bow and arrow, fire

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Speaker 1: and amulet, you've wandered beyond the limits of the fall hunt.

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Speaker 1: You've tracked your quarry into the rocky hills beyond, and here,

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Speaker 1: amid these strange, rocky outcroppings, you happen upon a cave.

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Speaker 1: You know, animals sometimes venture into these places for shelter,

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Speaker 1: perhaps water or salt, so you venture in as well.

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Speaker 1: You find nothing in the cave save a few dry sticks,

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Speaker 1: But as nightfalls you build a small fire against the cold.

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Speaker 1: As the flames illuminate the cavern walls, you suddenly make

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Speaker 1: out the shattered form of bone is in the rock,

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Speaker 1: bones as solid as the stone itself. In the dancing glow,

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Speaker 1: they describe a form you've never seen before, and it

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Speaker 1: instantly makes you wonder where the deer have gone, What

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Speaker 1: things beyond the scope of your experience thrive here amid

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Speaker 1: the stony hills. You've dared to hunt for the bones.

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Speaker 1: Describe a thing twice the height of a man, hornet

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Speaker 1: and clawed, a talent, toothed, and with a rib cage

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Speaker 1: or large enough to swallow you, your family, the entire tribe,

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Speaker 1: all of it within the dark hell of its hunger. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, what was

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Speaker 1: you getting at in that little story there, Well, basically

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Speaker 1: about finding some bones, uh, not knowing what those bones

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Speaker 1: are from, and having to sort of fill in the holes,

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Speaker 1: fill in the details. Well, maybe with a little myth making. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I want to put you in just a strange frame

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Speaker 1: of mind you might not be used to. We we

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Speaker 1: all know about fossils. We we all know now that

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Speaker 1: there are things that lived a long time ago that

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Speaker 1: sometimes undergo a mineralization process where their remains become sort

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Speaker 1: of locked in stone and preserved in ways that can

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Speaker 1: keep them, keep them, hold their holding their shape across

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Speaker 1: the eons and inherently incomplete fossil record of what came before. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but try to imagine you don't know any of that.

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Speaker 1: You don't know how old the earth is you don't

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Speaker 1: know anything about geology, sediment replacement or permanent mineralization, anything

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Speaker 1: about soil chemistry, any of that. You're you're just you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe a shepherd or something like that a few thousand

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Speaker 1: years ago, and you come across gigantic bones in the

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Speaker 1: ground that are bigger than any animal you've ever seen,

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Speaker 1: and look nothing like it is for some animal with

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Speaker 1: a gigantic lizard like head and sharp teeth. What would

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Speaker 1: you think you were looking at? Well as our character

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Speaker 1: in the in our introductory piece here seemed to think

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Speaker 1: that perhaps this is an exactly an existing creature that's

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Speaker 1: somewhere out there in the world, and I should be

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Speaker 1: afraid of it. Yeah, But then also I'm I'm probably

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Speaker 1: gonna know enough about bones, enough about actual organisms to

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Speaker 1: realize there's something fishy about this one. These bones are

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Speaker 1: like like stone. There's you know, there's something there's something

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Speaker 1: unnatural going on here as well. Yeah. I was having

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Speaker 1: this thought recently when my wife Rachel and I went

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Speaker 1: to New York and one of the places we went

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Speaker 1: there was the American Museum in Natural History, which is

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Speaker 1: just an absolute delight. If you've never been, it is wonderful.

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Speaker 1: You should also commit more than one day of your

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Speaker 1: trip to it, because there's no way you can see

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Speaker 1: it all in a day. And it's just absolutely wonderful.

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Speaker 1: I recommended as a pure experience just to go see,

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Speaker 1: for example, of the dinosaur fossils and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: They're and they're charming, lee retro dioramas of old animal

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Speaker 1: and all that. But it's it's not only just a

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Speaker 1: great visual experience, it's also wonderful science education because the

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Speaker 1: museum exhibits to an excellent job of not just telling

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Speaker 1: you what we know about the things you're looking at,

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Speaker 1: but also helping you understand how we came to know

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Speaker 1: what we know about the things you're looking at, and

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Speaker 1: what the what the method behind and reasoning behind what

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Speaker 1: we know is. So it's it's a wonderful monument of

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Speaker 1: scientific education for for kids and people of all ages. Really.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, people wander in not knowing what fossils were. No,

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Speaker 1: I'm asking what or what dragons are these? I I

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Speaker 1: don't think they did, but only if only you could,

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Speaker 1: because that I was having that thought, I'm looking at

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Speaker 1: these bones walking around and thinking, man, if I didn't

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Speaker 1: know anything, I would think these were monsters, I would

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Speaker 1: be like, where are the live ones? I need to

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Speaker 1: get away from them. And so this is what we

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Speaker 1: want to talk about today. The idea that fossil les

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Speaker 1: and uh not just fossils but remains fossilized or not

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Speaker 1: bones of extinct animals could have inspired visions of mythological

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Speaker 1: creatures throughout history. We want to essentially focus on the

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Speaker 1: topic of geo mythology. Yes, now, if you I just

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Speaker 1: wanna have a one quick note about myths here, if

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Speaker 1: you turn into the previous episode of The Christian and

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Speaker 1: I did Unraveling the Mythic, you know that there are

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Speaker 1: various ways to tackle mythology. The most most agree that

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Speaker 1: it's ultimately poly functional. Uh. That that means that, you know,

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Speaker 1: a myth, myth has several simultaneous purposes uh within a culture. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's not just uh you know, it's like it's like

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Speaker 1: the Swiss Army knife of of like cultural energies. I

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Speaker 1: guess yes. I I think that scientists and science minded

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Speaker 1: people often have a tendency to overrepresent the role of

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Speaker 1: naturalistic explanation and when trying to think about the origins

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Speaker 1: of myths, and what I mean by that is Uh,

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Speaker 1: if you're you're you're a science e kind of person,

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Speaker 1: you're more likely to say, Okay, here's a myth about

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Speaker 1: um a god who throws thunderbolts. The This myth was

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Speaker 1: created in order to explain why lightning happens during storms.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that's not part of our mythological structures.

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Speaker 1: I think it absolutely is. I think most in most

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Speaker 1: of the better arguments, the more modern arguments to at

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Speaker 1: least acknowledge that is part of it. That is one

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Speaker 1: of the functions and the poly functional explanation. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: the point I'm making. I think myths are definitely truly

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Speaker 1: meant to be explanatory for natural phenomenon, but that's not

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Speaker 1: all they are. They're also about moralizing to people, and

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Speaker 1: they're also about representing social norms and all kinds of

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Speaker 1: things that you know, they're they're as you say, poly functional. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So you know, it's important for us to to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind that a mythical monster, beast is all is

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Speaker 1: almost always more than a mirror h you know, proto

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Speaker 1: scientific explanation in a mirror a geomethological explanation, but the

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Speaker 1: geo mythological explanations I think can be very helpful. Uh

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Speaker 1: at times that they seem to just hit the nail

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Speaker 1: right on the head. Other times they at least raise

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Speaker 1: some interests in questions about how fossils, which which ancient

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Speaker 1: people undoubtedly came across as they as they they you know,

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Speaker 1: dug in the earth, as they farmed, as they explored

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Speaker 1: their world. They would they found these things. We know

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Speaker 1: they found these things, but then they had to somehow

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Speaker 1: make sense of them without a modern understanding of fossils. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so what is the concept of geo mythology? We should

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Speaker 1: offer a definition, And I'm going to read a quote

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Speaker 1: from the Encyclopedia of Geology that was an entry written

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Speaker 1: by Adrian Mayer, who is who is a name who's

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Speaker 1: going to figure very big into this episode because she's

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Speaker 1: one of the biggest names right now in the in

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Speaker 1: the whole field of geomethology, but especially in linking ancient

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Speaker 1: mythological creatures to fossil evidence and and remains of extinct animals.

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Speaker 1: So she writes, quote, geo mythology also called legends of

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Speaker 1: the Earth, myths of observation, natural knowledge, and physical mythology.

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Speaker 1: I like that is the study of ideological oral traditions

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Speaker 1: created by pre scientific cultures to explain in poetic metaphor

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Speaker 1: and mythological imagery geological phenomena such as volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, fossils,

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Speaker 1: and other natural features of the landscape. Now in this century.

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Speaker 1: She goes on to relate stuff about all kinds of geology,

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Speaker 1: like explanations of myths that would explain why a volcano

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Speaker 1: is erupting. You know, at Mount Etna, there happens to

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Speaker 1: be a dragon underneath this volcano who's trying to escape,

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Speaker 1: and that might explain why sometimes melted stone comes out

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Speaker 1: the top of it. Or are you know, just one

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Speaker 1: example of why earthquakes are being caused by God's the

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Speaker 1: way the landscape is shaped, the topography of it has

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Speaker 1: sometimes that has a mythological explanation, like you know, the

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Speaker 1: great the combat creation myths, like the God slays a

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Speaker 1: monster and then the monster's dead body becomes the earth,

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Speaker 1: and you know, the ridges on its spine are the

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Speaker 1: mountains and things like that. So there's just a wonderful

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Speaker 1: wealth of great links between the earth and its geological

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Speaker 1: features and the mythology that people come up with. But

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Speaker 1: fossils are a big part of this, and so uh

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Speaker 1: Mayor Mayor is a Stanford folklorist and historian of science

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Speaker 1: who studies ways in which knowledge about the natural world,

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Speaker 1: often knowledge that we could consider scientific or proto scientific,

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Speaker 1: appears in pre scientific myths and traditions. And she's gonna

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Speaker 1: come up repeatedly in this episode, so we thought we

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Speaker 1: should establish her um. She's written a lot on this topic. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: two over key books. There's two thousand sevens Fossil Legends

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Speaker 1: of the First Americans, and then our two thousand eleven book,

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Speaker 1: The First Fossil Hunters, Dinosaurs, Mammoths and myth in Greek

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Speaker 1: and Roman Times. That's a reissue of the book, the

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Speaker 1: two Ocean Loven version is it's updated, I think with

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Speaker 1: some stuff. Okay, so that one actually predates the American's book,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, it tackles antiquity, you know, looking at for example,

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Speaker 1: Greek legends. Yeah, and at times she she points out

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Speaker 1: that so many of these these monsters that we discussed,

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Speaker 1: they often what they break out of the ground, they

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Speaker 1: have origins in the earth or perhaps under the earth.

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Speaker 1: So that's just one of the many different and it's

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Speaker 1: gonna vary depending on what the particular myth is, because

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Speaker 1: certainly you have you have mythical creatures that are terrestrial

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Speaker 1: in nature, that are celestial in nature, that are tied

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Speaker 1: to the ocean or the rivers, or to the caves. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of variety here. Needless to say, there

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Speaker 1: are so many different mythic creatures, some related to one another,

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Speaker 1: but they're all going to have particular ties to their

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Speaker 1: own time and place and the people who dreamt about them,

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Speaker 1: and we're not going to have time to cover them

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Speaker 1: all here today, right, but we should start looking at

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Speaker 1: some examples of arguments that certain mythological creatures and monsters

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Speaker 1: are truly inspired by fossil evidence. And one of the

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Speaker 1: big ones, I think the one we really need to

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Speaker 1: start with is the griffin, because this is this is

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Speaker 1: something that's been widespread. I think this has become sort

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Speaker 1: of well known that there's an idea that griffins are

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Speaker 1: inspired by dinosaur bones, and so Traditionally, a griffin is

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Speaker 1: a creature said to have the body of a lion

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Speaker 1: with the head, beak and wings of an eagle, and

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Speaker 1: in ancient Greek sources, the griffin is often mentioned in

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Speaker 1: association with a tribe called the r A Mosspi, which

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Speaker 1: were traditionally said to all have only one eye on

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Speaker 1: their head, so they're kind of cyclopsis. Yeah, the Rmspi

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Speaker 1: were like these, uh, these Central Asian Scythian type people

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Speaker 1: who who harvested gold from the fields of the of

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Speaker 1: the Griffins. And this is great, the whole thing about

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Speaker 1: them all having one eye on on their head. Herodotus,

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Speaker 1: the Greek historian Herodotus, expresses some skepticism about this that

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Speaker 1: I find really funny. I want to quote Herodotus now,

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Speaker 1: as translated by George Rawlinson, quote, the northern parts of

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Speaker 1: Europe are very much richer in gold than any other region.

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Speaker 1: But how it is procured I have no certain knowledge.

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Speaker 1: The story runs that the one eyed r a Mosspy

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Speaker 1: purloin it from the Griffins. But here too, I am

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Speaker 1: incredulous and cannot persuade myself that there is a race

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Speaker 1: of men born with one eye, who in all else

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Speaker 1: resemble the rest of mankind. Nevertheless, it seems to be

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Speaker 1: true that the extreme regions of the earth, which surround

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Speaker 1: and shut up within themselves all other countries, produced the

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Speaker 1: things which are the rarest and which men reckon the

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Speaker 1: most beautiful. And so that's Herodotous writing in the fifth

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Speaker 1: century b c. E uh, And I find it great

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Speaker 1: that he's skeptical about the one eyed humans. He's like,

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Speaker 1: I don't buy it, but not necessarily about the Griffins.

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Speaker 1: And I wonder why could it be that in ancient

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Speaker 1: times people with a skeptical, fairly evidence based epistemological framework

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Speaker 1: might have reason to believe in some mythical creatures. And

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Speaker 1: if so, what could that reason be? One one part

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Speaker 1: of me says that it could just be not knowing, Right,

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Speaker 1: We've never been to the ends of the Earth. Who

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Speaker 1: knows what creatures live there. Yeah, the the understanding of

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Speaker 1: the time of of of Earth's diverse um life forms

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Speaker 1: was was very incomplete. I mean it's still incomplete, but

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Speaker 1: it was even more incomplete at a time. So the

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Speaker 1: idea that something like a griffin existed, sure, that's not

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Speaker 1: out of keeping with our experience of other creatures. Huh uh.

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Speaker 1: And so a couple more ancient sources about the Griffins,

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Speaker 1: the Roman author Plenty of the Elder summarizes what he's

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Speaker 1: learned about the Griffins while talking about the R. Mosby. So,

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Speaker 1: writing in his Natural History in the first century ce

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Speaker 1: Plenty says, quote many authorities, the most distinguished being Herodotus

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Speaker 1: and r a status of proconesus right that these people

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Speaker 1: and he's referring to the R Mosby or arm Posse sorry,

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Speaker 1: wage continual war with the griffins, a kind of wild

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Speaker 1: beast with wings, as commonly reported that digs gold out

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Speaker 1: of minds which the creatures guard, and the R Mosby

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Speaker 1: tried to take from them, both with remarkable covetousness. That's

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Speaker 1: a nice sort of like moralizing. They're a little bit right,

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Speaker 1: adding some kind of motivations. But then here's one more

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Speaker 1: long one that will give you a pretty good picture

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Speaker 1: of the ancient view of the griffin. So this is

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Speaker 1: alien writing on animals, translated by Scholfield in his Greek

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Speaker 1: Natural History second century a d. And I've made a

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Speaker 1: couple of illusions just for brevity, because this is a

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Speaker 1: long quote, but alien rights. I have heard that the

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Speaker 1: Indian animal, the griffin, is a quadruped like a lion,

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Speaker 1: that it has claws of enormous strength, and that they

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Speaker 1: resemble those of a lion. Men commonly report that it

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Speaker 1: is winged, and that the feathers along its back are

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Speaker 1: black and those on its front are red, while the

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Speaker 1: actual wings are neither but are white. It has a

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Speaker 1: beak like an eagle's and a head to just as

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Speaker 1: artists portrayed in pictures and sculpture. Its eyes are like fire.

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Speaker 1: It builds its layer among the mountains, and although it

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Speaker 1: is not possible to capture the full grown animal, they

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Speaker 1: do take the young ones. And the people of Bactria,

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Speaker 1: who are neighbors of the Indians, say that the Griffins

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Speaker 1: guard gold in those parts, that they dig it up

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Speaker 1: and build their nests with it, and that the Indians

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Speaker 1: carry off any that falls from them. The Indians, however,

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Speaker 1: denied that they guard the aforesaid gold, for the Griffins

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Speaker 1: have no need for it. And if that is what

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Speaker 1: they say, then I at any rate think that they

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Speaker 1: speak the truth, but that they themselves come to collect

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Speaker 1: the gold. While the Griffins, fearing for their young ones,

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Speaker 1: fight with the invaders, they engage too with other beasts

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Speaker 1: and overcome them without difficulty, but they will not face

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Speaker 1: the lion or the elephant. Accordingly, the natives, dreading the

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Speaker 1: strength of these animals, do not set out in quest

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Speaker 1: of the gold by day that arrived by night. For

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Speaker 1: that season, they are less likely to be detected. Now,

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Speaker 1: the region where the Griffins live and where the gold

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Speaker 1: is mined is a dreary wilderness, and the seekers, after

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Speaker 1: the aforesaid substance arrive a thousand or two strong, armed

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Speaker 1: in bringing spades and sacks, and watching for a moonless night,

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Speaker 1: they begin to dig. Now, if they contrive to elude

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Speaker 1: the Griffins, they reap a double advantage, for they not

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Speaker 1: only escape with their lives, but they also take home

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Speaker 1: they're freight. So this is pretty outline understounding. But I

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Speaker 1: am already seeing a connection here between this creature, this

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Speaker 1: fantastic creature, and the Earth with things mind from the

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Speaker 1: Earth exactly right. And you are not the first person

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Speaker 1: to notice that this figures in to Adrian Mayer's theory

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Speaker 1: about the Griffins and the and a specific type of

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Speaker 1: dinosaur will get into in a minute. So the griffin

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Speaker 1: head of an eagle, body of a lion lives in

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Speaker 1: a desolate or desert wilderness where gold can be found.

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Speaker 1: It's got wings, claws, scary as heck, screaming death, diving

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Speaker 1: at you out of the sky while you are blinded

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Speaker 1: by desert sun glinting off a mountain of gold. Pretty cool, uh.

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Speaker 1: And it builds its nests out of gold and just

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Speaker 1: jealously guards the golden treasures or not, maybe it doesn't

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Speaker 1: care about gold, but either way, they're pilfering humans who

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Speaker 1: it does battle with. The Greek and Roman legends often

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Speaker 1: associate Griffins with the north and the east, so India

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Speaker 1: and northern Europe or Central Asia the land of the Scythians.

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Speaker 1: In real life, that was a group. The Scythians were

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Speaker 1: a large group of horse riding people who occupied Central Asia,

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Speaker 1: and the extent of their empire of rerelapped the desert

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Speaker 1: in Asia now known as the Gobi. And there's a

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Speaker 1: curious thing about the Gobi Desert. It is a place

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Speaker 1: where fossils are not nearly as difficult to find as

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Speaker 1: they are in many other places. According to the paleontologists

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Speaker 1: within the the the Archives of the American Museum in

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Speaker 1: Natural History, it was not historically uncommon to come across

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Speaker 1: fossils of the dinosaur Proto Serratops peaking naked out of

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Speaker 1: eroding hillsides in the Gobi Desert. And this, of course

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Speaker 1: one with kind of a beaked Yeah. So it's a saratopsid.

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Speaker 1: It's a four legged dinosaur and it has so it's

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Speaker 1: a quadruped and it has yeah, I frill along the

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Speaker 1: top of its head and a beaked mouth. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting. But here's one account that was from the

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Speaker 1: American Museum in Natural History exhibit that they did on

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Speaker 1: this comparison between dinosaurs and griffin's and so it's an

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Speaker 1: account related from when the m n H paleontologist Michael

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Speaker 1: nova Check and paleontologist Mark Noral were on an expedition

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Speaker 1: in the Gobi Desert in which they came across a

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Speaker 1: skeleton of a dinosaur, this Protoceratops dinosaur. Uh So. Nova

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Speaker 1: Check described the scene in these words, quote, we stopped

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Speaker 1: at a low saddle between the hills. Before I could

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Speaker 1: remove the keys from the ignition, Mark sang out excitedly.

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Speaker 1: Several feet away, near the very apex of the saddle

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Speaker 1: was a stunning skull and partial skeleton of a Protoceratops,

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Speaker 1: a big fellow whose beak and crooked fingers pointed west

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Speaker 1: to our small outcrop like a griffin pointing the way

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Speaker 1: to a guarded treasure. We continued to pounce on precious

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Speaker 1: specimens with remarkable consistency. Mark would sing out skull and

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Speaker 1: almost on que I would find one too. The surface

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Speaker 1: of the general slopes and shallow gullies was splattered with

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Speaker 1: white patches of fossils, as if someone had emptied a

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Speaker 1: paint can in a random fashion over the ground. So

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Speaker 1: they're just tripping over fossils, and and it's not you

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Speaker 1: don't have to do a detailed excavation to try to

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Speaker 1: find one. Apparently in this region they can be seen

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Speaker 1: by the naked eye. Anybody who had happened to come

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Speaker 1: across them would see these huge beasts with four legs

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Speaker 1: and beaks. So Adrian Mayor has over the years developed

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Speaker 1: a fairly strong argument that these Protoceratops fossils have points

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Speaker 1: of agreement with the griffin legend. So their quadrupedal, they've

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Speaker 1: got a beak. The griffin has an eagle's beak, but

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Speaker 1: a quadrupedal body like a lion. Uh. That's sort of

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Speaker 1: that that goes in line with the shape of these dinosaurs.

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Speaker 1: It's got the bony frill. Uh. And and she argues

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Speaker 1: that the bony frill sometimes gets broken and leaves these

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Speaker 1: stumps there, which could have been interpreted as the crests

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Speaker 1: you often see on griffin heads or the ears you

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Speaker 1: often see on illustrations of ancient griffins. Uh and sometimes

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Speaker 1: the elongated shoulder blades, the shoulder blades that if you

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Speaker 1: look at a Protoceratops skeleton, they have shoulder blades that

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Speaker 1: kind of poke backward and look strange, and they look

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Speaker 1: kind of like wingbones, honestly, so that could explain griffin's

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Speaker 1: being said to have wings. And then of course there's

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Speaker 1: the location. So these are found in the bone beds

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Speaker 1: of Central Asia, Mongolia, and China, near where the Scythians

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Speaker 1: would have been mining gold. These alluvial gold deposits are

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Speaker 1: are near where Protos Saratops fossils are found. And these

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Speaker 1: these griffin descriptions seem to appear in the ancient Greek

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Speaker 1: literature around the time that the Greeks would have been

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Speaker 1: interacting and trading with the Scythians. So I think that's

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Speaker 1: a really interesting argument, and essentially it goes not necessarily

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Speaker 1: that there were no griffin ideas before the the Scythians

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Speaker 1: interacted with Protoceratops fossils, but that if they came across

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Speaker 1: these fossils, it could have very much have shaped and

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Speaker 1: steered the griffin ledge and too to the strong version

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Speaker 1: that we see of it repeated so often in this

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Speaker 1: ancient Greek literature. Yeah, and that's some motif that we

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Speaker 1: we come back to again and again with these examples.

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Speaker 1: And I think it's very important to drive them because

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Speaker 1: it's on one hand, you could very much take the

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Speaker 1: approach that like, oh, a primitive person solve this bone,

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Speaker 1: and then a myth was born of it. But but

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Speaker 1: as we're probably not that, probably not that simple. Myths

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Speaker 1: are more complicated than that. It's also not impossible, but

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Speaker 1: not impossible. But it seems like the the more believable

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Speaker 1: version the of of the encounter is that you have

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Speaker 1: a pre existing myth that involves some sort of fantastic

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Speaker 1: beast or another. Then you find these fossils, and without

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Speaker 1: you know, and without a you know, an actual understanding

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Speaker 1: of how fossils work, without a without a better explanation,

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Speaker 1: you turn to that script as an explanation for what

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Speaker 1: you see here. So the myth informs your interpretation of

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Speaker 1: the fossils. And then the fossils may enforce and and

387
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 1: and change your interpretation and of the myth itself. Yeah,

388
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 1: and then he moved into a new, a new age

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00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 1: that's informed both by the myth and the fossil. Yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: so I do think we should come back to uh

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Speaker 1: to exactly that idea later on about how how these

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Speaker 1: myths would be formed and what what level of explanation

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00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 1: we need for them as we encounter them. But for

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Speaker 1: this one specific example of Protoceratops fossils or other dinosaur

395
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Speaker 1: fossils in the Gobi Desert or in Central Asia more

396
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Speaker 1: generally inspiring the Scythian Griffins that guard the gold, the

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Speaker 1: paleontologist and paleo artist Mark Witten wrote an interesting blog

398
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 1: post I read that essentially is a pretty well researched

399
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Speaker 1: disagreement with the idea that Protoceratops could have served as

400
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: the inspiration for the griffin, and he makes some pretty

401
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:53,359
Speaker 1: decent arguments against it. For one thing, according to Witten,

402
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: the timeline is not very favorable to the proto Protoceratops

403
00:23:57,359 --> 00:24:01,359
Speaker 1: griffin hypothesis because he says it's so of ignores evidence

404
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:04,320
Speaker 1: of griffin lore from before the seventh century b C,

405
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Speaker 1: when when the Scythians could have introduced this these proto

406
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 1: Sratops inspired ideas to the Greeks. For example, one one

407
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:16,160
Speaker 1: example he gives is this fourth millennium b C. Depiction

408
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Speaker 1: of a griffin from the ancient city of Susa and

409
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Speaker 1: what is now iran Um. And so there's this long

410
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Speaker 1: tradition of griffin iron iconography predating the supposed Scythian interaction

411
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 1: with the Greeks Um. But then again there there could

412
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: also be a sort of like myth and fossil back

413
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 1: and forth, like we were just talking about. Whitten also

414
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:37,520
Speaker 1: argues that Mayer's hypothesis is based on sort of a

415
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 1: narrow selection of griffin representation types, because he says they're actually,

416
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of different ways to depict a griffin.

417
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:49,679
Speaker 1: And he's saying that the proto Saratops griffin hypothesis is

418
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:54,200
Speaker 1: based on selection bias in griffin imagery sampling, so sort

419
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 1: of cherry picking the griffins that best fit the protoceratops,

420
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 1: whereas there are other types of griffins that don't look

421
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:03,440
Speaker 1: very much like that. Yeah, this and this will come

422
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 1: up again too with some other monsters that we're going

423
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: to discuss here, uh huh, and then a few more

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00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:11,879
Speaker 1: one uh One thing. He says that the griffin doesn't

425
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: really need an explanation in exotic Anatomy of extinct species,

426
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:18,920
Speaker 1: because it will could well have been imagined simply by

427
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:22,639
Speaker 1: combining elements of existing animals known to these cultures at

428
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: the time. You don't have to have seen a quadruped

429
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: with a beak. You can just imagine an eagle's head

430
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: which you've seen on Alan's body, which you've seen. So

431
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 1: that argument that makes some sense to me, and I

432
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 1: do want to come back to that idea also. Um.

433
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:42,040
Speaker 1: He also argues that the earliest Greek accounts of griffin

434
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: lore come from semi mythical stories. Quote why should we

435
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: consider griffin's to have any more basis in reality than

436
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:52,959
Speaker 1: the gods, monsters, or strange human races also mentioned in

437
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: these stories? Uh, if Griffins are based on actual phenomenon,

438
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 1: do we need to seek rationales for these other creatures too?

439
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:02,239
Speaker 1: And I you know one thing that comes to my

440
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: mind is, well, yeah, okay, so if we need to

441
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: seek a rational explanation for the inspiration of the griffin myth,

442
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: do we also need it for the arm posse with

443
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 1: the one eyed people? Um? Do we have to figure

444
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 1: all where the people who all had one eye from

445
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:20,399
Speaker 1: some genetic kind of condition. I don't think so. But

446
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 1: also I think this point seems a little weak to

447
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: me because everybody acknowledges that Griffins are mythical and the

448
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: stories about them are not historically true. So the question

449
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: is whether the myths are pure imaginative fiction or fictions

450
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,400
Speaker 1: inspired by real world objects and events, and I think

451
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: either could likely be the case. There's no way to

452
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: automatically favor one or the other. I think the fossil

453
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 1: link is just an argument for the latter. And another

454
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:50,199
Speaker 1: point he makes is that Protosterotops fossils are you know,

455
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: have not been found at the sites of the Cythian

456
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: gold mines, but rather within a few hundred miles of them,

457
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: so you know, it's not like we saw them there

458
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 1: at gold mine. That would be a pretty good argument.

459
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: I think, yes, yes, if we actually had seen them there.

460
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: But yeah, so anyway, there there are arguments for their

461
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 1: arguments against that the Protosratops or another dinosaur quadrupedal dinosaur

462
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 1: with a beak could have inspired Griffin ideas, and I

463
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: think I don't know, I'm not sure where I come

464
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,160
Speaker 1: down on it, but I think it's still an interesting idea,

465
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: but he wouldn't make some some interesting arguments against it.

466
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: But that is by no means the only mythical creature

467
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 1: that has been said to have been inspired possibly by fossils,

468
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: right right, I mean we've been talking about one eyed folks.

469
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 1: So that leads us, of course to the Cyclops. Man,

470
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,719
Speaker 1: I love a good cyclops. Yeah, I do too. And

471
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:48,359
Speaker 1: you know, we see a lot of variety. That's the thing.

472
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: We always see more variety than than you might expect.

473
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,480
Speaker 1: It's like with the Cyclops. You see some artistic depictions

474
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 1: where there's just one um one orifice for the eye

475
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: in the hedge one one eyehole. Sometimes they are three,

476
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: and two of them are fleshed over. Uh. So there's

477
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 1: a lot of variety there as well. And indeed we

478
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: see a number of different explanations for where this might

479
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:12,679
Speaker 1: have come from. I've read that this might have been

480
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:17,119
Speaker 1: informed by the forehead lanterns of Pellucidian miners, or perhaps

481
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 1: the protective eye patches that were worn by blacksmiths has

482
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: prevented sparks from blinding both eyes at once, you'd always

483
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:28,160
Speaker 1: have one covered. Uh. But the theory that I think

484
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:30,479
Speaker 1: most people have probably encountered, and you either probably encountered

485
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 1: this in a school textbook or perhaps at the zoo, um,

486
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:37,680
Speaker 1: and that is that the school that the skulls of elephants,

487
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: particularly the skulls of prehistoric Mediterranean dwarf elephants, could have

488
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: informed our idea of the psyclops because you look at

489
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 1: this skull and you see this massive hole there in

490
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: the middle. That of course is a nasal openings for

491
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: the trunk, right, but you might think, hey, that looks

492
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: like an eye socket and the head looks kind of humanoid.

493
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what's going on here. And indeed Mayor chimes

494
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: in on this as well. And uh, the argument here

495
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: is that the myth may have originated or at least

496
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: gathered some some steam via the discovery of elephant skull fossils,

497
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 1: namely the prehistoric Mediterranean dwarf elephants, or another particular one

498
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: is Dinithrum giagantum, which within a would have been a

499
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: fifteen foot four point six meter high elephant creature. But

500
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: unlike modern elephants, these guys had had a four four

501
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: point five ft one point three meter backward pointing tusks. Yeah,

502
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 1: so backward. Yeah, you have to look at an image

503
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: of this because the tusk that they kind of look

504
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 1: like a chin beard, like some sort of a chin

505
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: beard that has been uh like they shaped those braided

506
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 1: devil beards. Yeah, like kind of like a braided devil beard. Yeah,

507
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 1: with a bid forks, and it's kind of turning backwards

508
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: towards the individual's chest chin thangs, chin kind of chin things.

509
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: The elephant would have probably use these two strip barks

510
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 1: from trees or possibly dig up plants. But no, only

511
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: use them for draining the blood out of enemies. But

512
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: but but you look at it, and it does look

513
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: like a humanoid skull, a very monstrous humanoid skull that

514
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: for some reason has a skeletal basis for its goatee

515
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: uh and has something like a third eyehole or a

516
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: large central eyehole in the middle of its head. Now,

517
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: a geologist from the University of Crets Natural History Museum

518
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: believe these creatures probably swam over from Turkey via the

519
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: islands of Rhodes and Carpathos to reach Crete. But yeah,

520
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: these present one possible idea of where the cyclops came from. Uh. Again,

521
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: if not an origin story, then perhaps something that informed

522
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 1: and strengthened existing beliefs along the way. Yeah. Again, that

523
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: seems like an interesting explanatory fit, but I guess there's

524
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: no way to know for sure. All Right, we're gonna

525
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 1: take a quick breaking. When we come back, we shall

526
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: get to the dragons. Hey, everybody, do you like TV? Well?

527
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: I have a feeling the TV likes you because it's

528
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: about to give you. The second season of the hit

529
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Speaker 1: show Mr Robot. Mr Robot follows Elliott Alderson played by

530
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: Rommy Malick, a young cybersecurity engineer who becomes involved in

531
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,959
Speaker 1: the underground hacker group F Society after being recruited by

532
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: their mysterious leader played by Christians Later in Old Favorite

533
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Speaker 1: of Mine. Following the events of F Society's five nine

534
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:31,800
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535
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: going to explore the consequences of that attack, as well

536
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: as the illusion of control. Now, obviously, the show ties

537
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: in perfectly with a number of topics we've discussed on

538
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: the on the show Illusions or perception. Uh. Some of

539
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: the more technological based episodes we've discussed as well, so

540
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: we think it's a no brainer for listeners out there

541
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: to give it a try. Check it out. And hey,

542
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: if you were already on board with season one, season

543
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 1: two drops Wednesday, July thirteenth at ten nine Central on

544
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: USA Network. That's Mr Robot Season two Wednesday. Do you

545
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: like their teenth ten nine Central only on USA Network. Alright,

546
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: we're back. So one of the obvious things has got

547
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 1: to be dragons, right, I think about therapod dinosaurs like, uh,

548
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: you see a spinosaurus or Rannosaurus rex, alberto Saurus and

549
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 1: any kind of uh. I mean, they just look so

550
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 1: dragon like. Yeah, as soon as you see them, you're like,

551
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: that is a thing that Yeah, it guards golden treasure,

552
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: kind of like the Griffin, I guess, and it will

553
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 1: bite you in half if you look at it cross side. Yeah,

554
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of hard, like I find with with

555
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: a four year old at times, it's been a little

556
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: challenging to describe and to explain that, Okay, this dragon here,

557
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 1: this is not real. These were never real. These are

558
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: purely made up. But this dinosaur this is this is real.

559
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: This was real. These used to exist. Well, you know,

560
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: some people make a kind of very different but in

561
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: a strange way, sort of parallel argument. I didn't really

562
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: know this, but if you google dinosaurs and dragons together,

563
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: actually you will get a lot of Young Earth creationist literature.

564
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 1: It wasn't really a where this, but apparently some people

565
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: of that persuasion believe that the dragon myths were created

566
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 1: not out of a need to explain fossils, but came

567
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 1: out of direct human interactions with dinosaurs. Uh So, leaving

568
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: that belief aside, uh, if you walk among the skeletons

569
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 1: of these dinosaurs and you see the fossils, that's really

570
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: I think all you would need to definitely want to

571
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: come up with some kind of dragon type creature to

572
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: explain them, and so that yeah, they may have dreamed

573
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 1: up something like we see in various mythological depictions. But

574
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 1: you also, in fact, and I think I agree with this,

575
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: may Or makes the point that you wouldn't necessarily have

576
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 1: to see dinosaur fossils to dream up dragons. In fact,

577
00:33:56,640 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: the fossils or or just skeletal remains of many large

578
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: mammals could easily be taken as dragon like in nature. Yeah,

579
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: especially when you start thinking outside of the box. About

580
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: what a dragon is. We discuss this a little bit

581
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,320
Speaker 1: in our Chinese Zodiac episode, because in the in the

582
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: the Asian traditions, you strip away this sort of cliche

583
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: Western idea, sort of dungeons and dragon's view of a dragon,

584
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 1: and you start trying to describe it, it just becomes

585
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:29,440
Speaker 1: this amalgam of different biological influence. They are less large

586
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:33,839
Speaker 1: lizards and more boundary crossing chimera animals. Yeah, and so

587
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,040
Speaker 1: all you need is a large ribcage. All you need is, uh,

588
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: you know, a few bones that clearly don't match up

589
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: with anything in the world that you have seen, or

590
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 1: some huge skulls in ancient India, that's right. So, uh

591
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: so there is a tradition of dragons in India that

592
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 1: is attributed to so a story about the first centuries

593
00:34:56,360 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: Greek philosopher Apollonius of Tyana saying when he when he

594
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 1: traveled through the foothills of the Himalayas and went to

595
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:08,839
Speaker 1: northern India. Philostrotis's story about this is that it was

596
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,240
Speaker 1: just full of dragon skulls. Right, Yeah, we're not dragon skulls.

597
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: Dragons Well, he basically reported his fact that, hey, dragons

598
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 1: are everywhere in this area, and I've seen the skulls

599
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: to prove it um And and indeed there seemed to

600
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: have been just a number of different skulls or heads

601
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,759
Speaker 1: that were laid at the base of a mountain in

602
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 1: a place that referred to as a paraca that kept

603
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: his trophies, right, but like the predator, Yeah, kind of

604
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 1: like the predator in the skull and some of these

605
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 1: are like, you know, not only are they skulls, but

606
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: they have crystals inside them in some cases, which seems

607
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: to represented, you know, the supernatural powers perhaps of these

608
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 1: these creatures. Yeah. Now, so who knows where this was

609
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:52,399
Speaker 1: actually supposed to take place or if there's any truth

610
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: to the story of this journey at all about Apollonius.

611
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:58,840
Speaker 1: But either way, it could have been inspired by accounts

612
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,479
Speaker 1: of the region independent and of Apollonius. Yeah, there's some

613
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: speculation that it might match up with with the Peshawar

614
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:10,439
Speaker 1: in modern Pakistan, uh and In and indeed in later times,

615
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: according to Mayor, a famous of Buddhist holy place near

616
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 1: Peshawar was known as quote the Shrine of the Thousand Heads.

617
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 1: So what could these heads have been if they were

618
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 1: not truly dragon heads? Well, as you As you mentioned,

619
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: they could have been just about anything um in this

620
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:35,799
Speaker 1: areas just strewn with the impressive Pleo Pleistocene era vertebrate fossils,

621
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: so they would have had their pick of pretty impressive

622
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 1: dragon heads. And and what's more, calcite and uh selenite

623
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: crystals are very common in the fossilized bones in this area,

624
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:49,280
Speaker 1: so this would have led to perhaps to the tales

625
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 1: of the gems that are embedded within the dragon's heads.

626
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, that's a crazy myth. Gym's inside the

627
00:36:55,920 --> 00:37:00,399
Speaker 1: dragon head? Yeah, like the gyms are its brain or

628
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:05,719
Speaker 1: you know, some component, maybe some cybernetic component. Oh man,

629
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: that's great. That's another one that that sounds like a

630
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: very interesting historical explanation. But then again, we're just sort

631
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:17,200
Speaker 1: of like fitting what we know now onto the details

632
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: of history, so it's it's hard to know for sure

633
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 1: if if an explanation like that was true. I think, yeah,

634
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 1: it's interesting, this very same region just below the Himalayas. Uh.

635
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 1: It's also been argued that this may have informed and

636
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:39,080
Speaker 1: molded some understandings of of of an of a very

637
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:44,399
Speaker 1: important event in in Hindu mythology, specifically the dynastic war

638
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: between the Carabas and the Pandavas in the epic mahabarata

639
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:52,920
Speaker 1: Um and this uh. This idea comes from the paper

640
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: Fossil Folklore from India, the Sea, Wala Hills and the

641
00:37:56,640 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 1: Mahabarata by Alexander van der Gear, Michael uh Dermissouts and

642
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,479
Speaker 1: John de Vos, and this was published in the journal

643
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,319
Speaker 1: Folklore in two thousand and eight. But they basically point

644
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: out that you have you have a number of fossil ammonites,

645
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: for example, that are worshiped as the disc or chakra

646
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 1: of the Hindu god Vishnu. Oh I didn't know that

647
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: and that uh, And then indeed this is an area

648
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 1: that's rich invertebrate fossils. And the authors argued that this

649
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: region was seen as perhaps the historical stage for this

650
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:34,719
Speaker 1: legendary battle that's described in the Mahabaratah during which hundreds

651
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 1: of mighty and sometimes gigantic heroes or are engaging in

652
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: battle with each other. They're elephants that are war elephants

653
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: that are said to have fought and died. So that

654
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense. How if you were to find

655
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 1: a bunch of fossils all in the same place. You

656
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: you might not having an understanding of how things get

657
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 1: deposited over geological time, you might very well assume that

658
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: something big went down here. Yeah, surely this was the

659
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 1: side of some epic battle. And look at all the

660
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 1: strange things that died here. Some of these are clearly elephants,

661
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 1: because you would have seen a number of prehistoric elephant

662
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: type species. But also you would have four horn a horn,

663
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: giraffe creatures, giant tortoises, sabertooth cats, different camels, and on

664
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 1: top of this, you would have also found lots of

665
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 1: ancient bronze javelins and spears. So the archaeological artifacts plus

666
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 1: the uh the paleontological remains would have equaled and influence

667
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 1: over the setting and context of the great battle that

668
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: occurs in this Indian epic. That is really interesting. And

669
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: I think the the idea of the density of fossils

670
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 1: leading into the differential mythical interpretations and stuff like that,

671
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:48,719
Speaker 1: that that's something to keep in mind. But let's go

672
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:52,399
Speaker 1: farther east, right, shall we. Okay, let's do um. Yeah,

673
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,240
Speaker 1: let's talk just a little bit about the the Chinese unicorn,

674
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:58,799
Speaker 1: the the the quillan, a creature that is often known

675
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:03,359
Speaker 1: nefer to by Westerners as the Chinese unicorn. And it's

676
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 1: worth noting that the that the that Western unicorn depictions

677
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:10,279
Speaker 1: vary a lot on their own. So you have some

678
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 1: Western unicorns that look more like a goat, some look

679
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: more like a horse. Sometimes within the same work or

680
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: series of works, such as the Lady in the Unicorn tapestries. UM.

681
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: But the the Chinese quillon and it's various incarnations that

682
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 1: you find throughout the East Asia. They vary even more so.

683
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: It's it's essentially a mystical sacred forest creature, but there

684
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: are elements of a deer and other herbivores, and the

685
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 1: details vary. Beyond that, UM, there's um. You know, sometimes

686
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:41,480
Speaker 1: it's it's sometimes it has one, sometimes there's two or

687
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 1: three fleshy horns. Sometimes they're more distinctly antlers. UM. So

688
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:49,439
Speaker 1: you can well imagine that in looking at the fossil record,

689
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 1: you could easily pick and choose what you want this

690
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:57,400
Speaker 1: thing to resemble in the fossil record. UM. So there

691
00:40:57,400 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: are a couple of interesting arguments that are made about it.

692
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:03,280
Speaker 1: One is that is that this might that the origin

693
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: of this might have been a giraffe. Um, So essentially

694
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 1: you would have had travelers that this is not even

695
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:12,839
Speaker 1: fossil related, but the idea that you would have had

696
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: travelers who ventured out to the coast of Africa and

697
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:20,439
Speaker 1: returned with not only stories of giraffes, but in one

698
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: case UH fourteen fourteen, the unit commander ching Ho would

699
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: have returned with a giraffe as a tribute to Emperor

700
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 1: Yung below. And the Somali name for giraffe is also gearon,

701
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 1: which might have sounded like quillen and so, which is

702
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 1: a word that also is a nymblem of justice to

703
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: the Chinese. So there's a possibility that that the giraffe

704
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 1: might have played some role in the formation or the

705
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 1: evolution of the idea of equillent. That's interesting now. I know.

706
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 1: One thing I think I've heard is that different unicorn

707
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:58,760
Speaker 1: legends would have to be traceable back to the rhinoceros.

708
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:03,399
Speaker 1: Is there anything to that, Well, possibly, you know, there's

709
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 1: no This is one of another one of those areas

710
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: where you can't really say for sure, and I tend like, personally,

711
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 1: looking at the information, I tend to doubt some of

712
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 1: the connections that are made. A lot of people, both

713
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 1: for Western and Eastern unicorns. They pull, they point to

714
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 1: the Elasmotherium um, which were particularly and more recently, it's

715
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 1: been in the news recently because uh, it's been discovered

716
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:33,280
Speaker 1: that you actually had humans and elasmo theory ms living

717
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: side by side in modern day Kazakhstan a mere twenty

718
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:40,399
Speaker 1: nine thousand years ago. Uh. This according to a recent

719
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,320
Speaker 1: study published in the American Journal of Applied Sciences. Previous

720
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: estimates would have placed it outside the two hundred thousand

721
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: year run of human history. The Elasmotherium did not look

722
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 1: like at western unicorn. It did not really look like

723
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 1: any of the depictions we see of an Eastern unicorn

724
00:42:56,480 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: or the quillon. Uh. It really looked like a large

725
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: rhistoric rhino with a really awesome horn. But there is

726
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: the idea that if not direct human observation of this creature,

727
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 1: then perhaps memories and stories in oral tradition of encountering

728
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 1: or crewe illustrations yea, our crewed illustrations informed our knowledge

729
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: of of of what it is um. Now. Of course,

730
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 1: there are also arguments to be made that the quillon

731
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: is in what was informed by actual rhinos, more modern rhinos,

732
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:36,280
Speaker 1: particularly Sue Matron. Rhinoceros is that that once lived throughout

733
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 1: China and still live in in parts of of Asia today. Um.

734
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 1: And there's some interesting arguments on both sides here. But

735
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 1: you definitely see realistic depictions of Sumatran rhinos in Chinese

736
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 1: artistic traditions. So there does seem to be a divide

737
00:43:55,160 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: between the the the pure real world rhino camp and

738
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 1: equillent camp. So again it remains an open question. Well, Robert,

739
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 1: I've got another one, and I want you to take

740
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 1: a look at a vase with me. Do you want

741
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:11,920
Speaker 1: to look at a not a vase, a mixing bowl.

742
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:15,240
Speaker 1: Put your eyes on it. Okay, I'm looking at it now. Okay.

743
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: So this is a This is an object in the

744
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 1: Museum of Fine Arts in Boston that is a late

745
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: Corinthian mixing bowl from about five fifty BC. And it

746
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 1: is it is described as Heracles or also known as Hercules,

747
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:34,840
Speaker 1: firing arrows while he Sion hurls rocks at a dragon.

748
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: Presumably this dragon is the monster of Troy or the

749
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:46,920
Speaker 1: Catos troyas uh. This this illustration is crazy looking Hercules

750
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 1: and Heracles. He looks like a robot, straight up robot right,

751
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:55,800
Speaker 1: and then uh, hecon of course is kind of standing

752
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 1: there between him and this monster, and I don't know.

753
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:01,799
Speaker 1: We'll get to the monster in a second. But if

754
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: you're able to look this up, do so, because it

755
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 1: is weird. The monster does not look like a normal

756
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:09,759
Speaker 1: monster as you would expect it to be depicted in

757
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 1: classical Greek art. It looks like a big black mass

758
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: with some sort of white animal skull jutting out of it.

759
00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: So what's going on in this story? Well, in the tradition,

760
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:27,360
Speaker 1: Poseidon has a beef beef with Laomadon, the king of Troy,

761
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:31,760
Speaker 1: and so Poseidon to get back at Lamadon, sends a

762
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:35,720
Speaker 1: key TOAs a sea sea beast to attack the city,

763
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: and the Trojans keep the sea monster at bay by

764
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:42,320
Speaker 1: sacrificing maidens to it. Keitas is like, okay, maidens are tasty.

765
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 1: I can I can make this work, um. But at

766
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 1: some point Hercules rolls up to Troy around the same

767
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: time that the Trojans are about to sacrifice Lamadon's daughterson

768
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 1: to the monster, and then Hercules Saveson by killing the

769
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:01,720
Speaker 1: sea beast. But in two and two Adrian Mayor authored

770
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 1: a paper in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology about this

771
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: illustration on this mixing bowl, and the paper was called

772
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:13,800
Speaker 1: the Monster of Troy vase, the the earliest artistic record

773
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 1: of a vertebrate fossil discovery, and Mayor argues that this

774
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 1: illustration of the legend of Hercules rescuing from the Monster

775
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:27,320
Speaker 1: of Troy was likely visually inspired by a large fossil skull.

776
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:29,880
Speaker 1: So here it's not necessarily the myth itself, but at

777
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:33,840
Speaker 1: least this illustration of it um so the key toss

778
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: in this illustration does not conform to the Greek style

779
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: of ce monster art, which was usually created kind of

780
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 1: like the griffin tradition by mixing attributes of various different

781
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,719
Speaker 1: known animals like the head of a lion, body of

782
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 1: a snake, or something like that. Instead. Features on the

783
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 1: illustration caused Mayor to think that the image was inspired

784
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: by a quote a large fossil skull of a prehistoric mammal,

785
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:03,920
Speaker 1: possibly a sam Motherium, which was a giant Miocene giraffhoid.

786
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 1: Back to giraffes again, I know that they're so terrifying

787
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 1: in the mythic tradition Hu and having looked at both myself,

788
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:12,720
Speaker 1: I can definitely see the resemblance that would cause somebody

789
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: to say this, including both the skull the skull monster

790
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:21,440
Speaker 1: in the picture and the same ethereum have this L

791
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:25,720
Speaker 1: shaped lower jaw that protrudes from beyond the upper jaw

792
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: in the front, and then when it hooks up in

793
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:30,880
Speaker 1: the L shape UH to connect with the rest of

794
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 1: the skull, it's sort of right behind where the eyes are,

795
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 1: and it's the same in the picture. So u Mayor

796
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:41,279
Speaker 1: also points out the quote. Numerous literary accounts describe exposures

797
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:44,880
Speaker 1: of these and similar large mammal fossils in antiquity along

798
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: the Turkish coast, on the Aegean Islands and on the

799
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:51,239
Speaker 1: Greek mainland. I conclude that this vase painting is the

800
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 1: earliest artistic record of such a discovery. So the idea

801
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: here is that the image in the painting UH is

802
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:03,800
Speaker 1: inspired by a giant samotherium or other large extinct mammal

803
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:07,719
Speaker 1: skull jutting out of a cliff, which you may well

804
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:10,719
Speaker 1: have found at that time in that place. It's it's

805
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,400
Speaker 1: almost as if the the artist here they said, all right,

806
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:15,399
Speaker 1: what does this monster look like? And then someone said, oh,

807
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 1: you see that skull up on the cliff that that

808
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:18,799
Speaker 1: might have been when its head was like and then

809
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 1: he did like a direct drawing of and they're like,

810
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 1: your bonehead, that's not what it actually looked like. That's

811
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 1: just the skull, oh bonehead by accident. But seriously, you

812
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,320
Speaker 1: should look up this mixing bowl. It looks it looks

813
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 1: so weird and so great. Yeah. Both the both the

814
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 1: illustration of the monster of the of Troy and the

815
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 1: the actual fossil skull both look very metal, like they

816
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: could either one could be on the cover of a

817
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 1: heavy metal album. You do. You usually don't think of

818
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: giraffes as being very metal, but I guess they are,

819
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 1: especially when you take all their flesh off. Yeah, and

820
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 1: they have the the elongated skull in this case and

821
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:57,680
Speaker 1: the bony horn lumps on the top of the head.

822
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna return to China for for I

823
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: think of our last specific example here. So in many

824
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:11,359
Speaker 1: regions of China you will find track bearing fossil slabs

825
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:13,840
Speaker 1: that are used. They're either sometimes they're used as building

826
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 1: materials or at least they're they're integrated into houses yards

827
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:22,000
Speaker 1: uh in older traditions, cave dwellings UH and they serve

828
00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:26,760
Speaker 1: as auspicious symbols or just mere decorations, but they are

829
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 1: essentially the footsteps of dinosaurs. And there are records of

830
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 1: these going back hundreds and hundreds of years of individuals

831
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 1: finding these. Uh. People are fascinated with them and they

832
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 1: hold onto them because when you encounter these footsteps, it's

833
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 1: kind of like encountering the bones. Here are some some

834
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:46,319
Speaker 1: footsteps in the stone, and you know what footsteps are.

835
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:47,799
Speaker 1: You can you can look at these and go, oh,

836
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:50,280
Speaker 1: that kind of looks like the footsteps of a bird,

837
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:54,799
Speaker 1: but they're set in stone. There's something weird going on here,

838
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 1: there's something supernat must have been a magical bird, right.

839
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: So Uh, this is where we end up with the

840
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:05,080
Speaker 1: idea that these are the footsteps of the golden pheasant,

841
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 1: or sometimes referred to as the golden chicken. They like

842
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 1: golden chicken, the gingi or um the or the golden

843
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: chickens claw gingi za, and it's regarded as again an

844
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:21,959
Speaker 1: auspicious symbol. Uh. Now, the golden pheasant is of course

845
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 1: a real bird, but it's elusive nature, it's beautiful colors

846
00:50:26,040 --> 00:50:29,440
Speaker 1: make it a prime candidate for deification, and it's also

847
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 1: associated with the feng Long, which is a mythological bird

848
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:37,880
Speaker 1: similar to the western phoenix. So without the knowledge of

849
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 1: fossil making, than the maker of these tracks clearly had

850
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:44,719
Speaker 1: to be divine. So so it's an interesting tradition. I

851
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: read about this in a paper titled Dinosaur Tracks, Myths

852
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:54,840
Speaker 1: and Buildings Um the Gingi Stones from Zizo Area, Northern

853
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: shawn Zi, China. It's a two thousan paper, um, but

854
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's a more interests thing insight into it.

855
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:03,719
Speaker 1: And again it doesn't specifically involve bones, but involves just

856
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:08,240
Speaker 1: the the fossil footsteps. Oh, that's still be geomethology typically, yeah, totally.

857
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 1: But but this one I feel like it's more of

858
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 1: a direct case because it's individuals saying and cultures saying,

859
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:17,960
Speaker 1: here are the footsteps, and this is why they're important

860
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:19,640
Speaker 1: to us. This is what I mean. Well, that would

861
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 1: actually be a really good example than of, um, what

862
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,360
Speaker 1: it looks like when you have a very solid case

863
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:32,839
Speaker 1: in geo mythology explanation, because um, I mean, with with

864
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 1: this whole subject, it's very fascinating. I love reading about

865
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 1: this stuff. It's super fun. But very often we're coming

866
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:44,680
Speaker 1: up with it's kind of like evolutionary psychology explanations that

867
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 1: you encounter that can be very cleverly devised. Oftentimes there

868
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:53,280
Speaker 1: there's some very compelling kind of it makes sense fitting

869
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 1: the evidence together for them, but at the same time,

870
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,279
Speaker 1: they can feel less solid than a lot of other

871
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 1: scientific high A potheses because it's hard for you to

872
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:05,479
Speaker 1: make predictions with them. At the end of the day,

873
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 1: even the best examples of either evolutionary psychology or geomethology,

874
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm shaking, I'm nodding my head and saying, yeah,

875
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: I feel like that could be part of the explanation.

876
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:18,799
Speaker 1: So while I don't mean to downplay the work people

877
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:20,439
Speaker 1: have done on this at all, Like I think that

878
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:23,959
Speaker 1: a whole lot of really really intelligent research has gone

879
00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 1: into this subject, and I love reading about it, but

880
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:30,359
Speaker 1: it definitely does feel like a softer, squishier science than

881
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:33,960
Speaker 1: than much other science. And one issue that follows from

882
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:36,960
Speaker 1: that is this, I've been thinking about this question, how

883
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 1: hard should we be looking for scientific historical explanations for

884
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 1: ancient myths and legends before we conclude that they're most

885
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:50,840
Speaker 1: likely explained just from forces inside the mind of the creator,

886
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:55,760
Speaker 1: whether that's conscious imaginative fiction writing, or visions or hallucinations,

887
00:52:56,440 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 1: whatever psychogenic origins. Um because as if you try to

888
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:07,200
Speaker 1: explain every myth by external facts about the world that

889
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:10,279
Speaker 1: we can find evidence of, now, it's sort of it

890
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:13,319
Speaker 1: can end up taking you to crazy extremes. Right. Yeah.

891
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:17,440
Speaker 1: One thing that definitely comes to my mind is have

892
00:53:17,520 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 1: you ever heard what the ancient aliens people say about

893
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:23,439
Speaker 1: the Bible? Oh? How? How? How have I not? Oh? Yeah,

894
00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 1: I mean it's crazy. In the quick one, the Book

895
00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 1: of Ezekiel, but the Bible, chapter one, the author says

896
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 1: he sees a vision of God. Right. He says, quote,

897
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:35,800
Speaker 1: as I looked, a stormy wind came out of the north,

898
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 1: a great cloud with brightness around it, and fire flashing

899
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:41,760
Speaker 1: forth continually, and in the middle of the fire something

900
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 1: like gleaming amber. In the middle of it was something

901
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 1: like four living creatures. This was their appearance. They were human,

902
00:53:48,160 --> 00:53:51,359
Speaker 1: of human form. Each had four faces, and each of

903
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:54,200
Speaker 1: them had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the

904
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:56,120
Speaker 1: soles of their feet were like the soul of a

905
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:59,719
Speaker 1: calf's foot, and they sparkled like burnished bronze. And then

906
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:02,239
Speaker 1: lay it are starting verse fifteen. As I looked at

907
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:04,560
Speaker 1: the living creatures. I saw a wheel on the earth

908
00:54:04,600 --> 00:54:07,160
Speaker 1: beside the living creatures, one for each of the four

909
00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:09,520
Speaker 1: of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and

910
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:12,920
Speaker 1: their construction, their appearance was like the gleaming of Beryl,

911
00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:15,520
Speaker 1: and the four of them had the same form, their

912
00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 1: construction being something like a wheel within a wheel. Obviously

913
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 1: flying saucer aliens. Right, ask the Internet, it will tell

914
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:27,000
Speaker 1: you the author of this passage encounter to flying saucer aliens.

915
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:29,560
Speaker 1: Four aliens got out of it there. I don't know

916
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:34,399
Speaker 1: their shape, shifting, h nanomaterial suits, whatever you want, it's

917
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:37,799
Speaker 1: all there. Now. This is a very different and much

918
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 1: more extreme hypothesis than fossils explaining mythical creatures, right, because

919
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:45,440
Speaker 1: whereas we actually know that fossils exist, we do not

920
00:54:45,560 --> 00:54:48,480
Speaker 1: know whether aliens or flying saucers exist. And there are

921
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 1: some good arguments concerning interstellar distances, etcetera. To make us

922
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 1: think that, even if they do exist, that it's unlikely

923
00:54:55,160 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 1: they visited Earth. But a similar principle is at play.

924
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 1: Right when we counter an ancient account of a vision

925
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:06,000
Speaker 1: or a myth, or anything that seems fantastical in any way,

926
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 1: do we need to find a naturalistic external explanation for it,

927
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:16,319
Speaker 1: apart from psychogenic origins. Is it just the person writing it?

928
00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:19,239
Speaker 1: Is that their imagination or a vision they saw in

929
00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:23,759
Speaker 1: their head? Yeah, because otherwise you're limiting an ancient individual

930
00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 1: to some to some sort of really really ultimately alien

931
00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 1: mindset where they have no creative thought, they have no

932
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:35,879
Speaker 1: pre existing stories of the fantastic or ideas of the fantastic,

933
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 1: and are not susceptive susceptible to hallucination of any sort.

934
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 1: And they can only they can only make create a

935
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: written account or a or an oral tradition based on

936
00:55:45,640 --> 00:55:49,440
Speaker 1: something they directly saw as it is written. Yeah. Then again,

937
00:55:49,800 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 1: people definitely do take inspiration in the fiction and the

938
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 1: fantasy they create from events and objects in the real world.

939
00:55:56,640 --> 00:55:58,439
Speaker 1: So I don't I don't think it's a fool's errand

940
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:01,640
Speaker 1: to be looking for these kind of explanations. But how

941
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:03,759
Speaker 1: hard should we look? I guess as the question like,

942
00:56:04,120 --> 00:56:07,319
Speaker 1: when should we just be satisfied that, well, you know,

943
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:11,560
Speaker 1: this person probably just had an active imagination that came

944
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:14,719
Speaker 1: up with the with the lion's body and an eagle's head.

945
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:17,440
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be weird? You know? Do they need to

946
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:21,200
Speaker 1: have seen something that made them think of a quadruped

947
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 1: with the beak. Yeah, because I mean, ultimately, if you

948
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:28,920
Speaker 1: take a skeptical approach, more even skeptical approach, you can

949
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 1: basically say that this person is describing a bunch of

950
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:37,880
Speaker 1: um sort of psychedelic craziness, and the religious script for

951
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 1: it that they had to play with says, oh, well,

952
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:45,200
Speaker 1: this is God. Our modern supernatural script is that it's aliens,

953
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:49,760
Speaker 1: and both are essentially just um, you know, fictional scripts

954
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:53,120
Speaker 1: that we have to describe something that does not conform

955
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 1: to the world. Yeah, if you're going to go with

956
00:56:56,080 --> 00:57:00,960
Speaker 1: a naturalistic explanation, yeah, or it's God, I mean, just clearally,

957
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:04,600
Speaker 1: it's just that's the actual God appearing before well. I mean,

958
00:57:04,680 --> 00:57:07,440
Speaker 1: of course, for people who believe in whatever God is

959
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:11,399
Speaker 1: figuring into this particular story, that's obviously an option for them.

960
00:57:11,600 --> 00:57:14,680
Speaker 1: For people on the outside of that belief tradition who

961
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:16,720
Speaker 1: don't believe in that, that's not really an option for

962
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 1: them in in explaining where this comes from. But you

963
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:23,160
Speaker 1: don't have to go any kind of to any kind

964
00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 1: of contorted, uh, third party external naturalistic interpretations. You can

965
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:32,960
Speaker 1: always just think, well, somebody thought something up. Yeah, of course,

966
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:35,720
Speaker 1: we're always at a disadvantage because they were always looking

967
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:39,919
Speaker 1: back in hindsight on these examples. But what if we

968
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: what if we dare to look ahead? What have we

969
00:57:42,720 --> 00:57:48,280
Speaker 1: dare to imagine what future commentators, future historians, uh, maybe

970
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 1: even visitors from outer space would make of some of

971
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 1: the uh the mythical constructs that we have today. Yeah,

972
00:57:55,400 --> 00:57:57,640
Speaker 1: I think that is a fascinating question. Is something that

973
00:57:57,680 --> 00:58:01,920
Speaker 1: Adrian Mayer brings up in her geomethology entry that I

974
00:58:02,040 --> 00:58:06,200
Speaker 1: talked about earlier in the Encyclopedia of Geology. She points

975
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:12,040
Speaker 1: out the storage of transuranic radioactive waste. Have you ever

976
00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:16,080
Speaker 1: heard about the intentional creation of geo myths with relation

977
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:18,560
Speaker 1: to this? No, I don't believe I have. Okay, So

978
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:22,200
Speaker 1: the problem is, once you have high level radioactive waste,

979
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:25,160
Speaker 1: after you know, it comes out of it comes out

980
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 1: of a nuclear reactor, you've got to store it somewhere,

981
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:32,920
Speaker 1: preferably somewhere underground. And this stuff will remain dangerous for

982
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:38,640
Speaker 1: thousands of years, far far beyond the lifespan of you know,

983
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 1: the United States already, I mean, so much changes on

984
00:58:42,320 --> 00:58:44,280
Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth in the amount of time

985
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:47,520
Speaker 1: that the stuff remains dangerous. How do you come up

986
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 1: with ways of keeping people away from it that are

987
00:58:51,280 --> 00:58:54,120
Speaker 1: going to last that long? You can lock it up

988
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:57,000
Speaker 1: in a building, but what if future people come across

989
00:58:57,040 --> 00:59:00,000
Speaker 1: this building and say something's locked in there might be valuable.

990
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:01,840
Speaker 1: Maybe we should get inside, and then of course they

991
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:05,960
Speaker 1: sicken and die. Um. Or you could try to put

992
00:59:06,040 --> 00:59:09,040
Speaker 1: up signs that say warning, this is poisonous, stay away

993
00:59:09,080 --> 00:59:11,560
Speaker 1: from it. It will hurt you. Will the people of

994
00:59:11,600 --> 00:59:14,560
Speaker 1: the future remember why those signs were there and believe you?

995
00:59:14,680 --> 00:59:17,080
Speaker 1: Or will they even speak the same language as you,

996
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:20,520
Speaker 1: Will they be able to read them? Uh? So this

997
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:23,920
Speaker 1: this is a problem, and so one solution, as mentioned

998
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 1: by Mayor is uh. Some people have suggested, what if

999
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:32,600
Speaker 1: we create geo myths about radioactive storage sites, thus creating

1000
00:59:32,800 --> 00:59:37,440
Speaker 1: intentionally mythology that says, don't go near these places because

1001
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:41,720
Speaker 1: they're full of curses that will destroy you. Well, that's it,

1002
00:59:41,920 --> 00:59:43,800
Speaker 1: like the like one idea that comes to mind, as

1003
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:45,960
Speaker 1: you just go ahead, put out an image of Godzilla there,

1004
00:59:46,480 --> 00:59:48,520
Speaker 1: and then they'll think, oh, well, no one will come

1005
00:59:48,520 --> 00:59:50,920
Speaker 1: here because we'll see the image of Godzilla. But as

1006
00:59:50,960 --> 00:59:54,120
Speaker 1: a monster, I always go toward images of Godzilla. Right.

1007
00:59:55,120 --> 00:59:57,480
Speaker 1: But then also they might think, oh, there's an image

1008
00:59:57,480 --> 00:59:59,800
Speaker 1: of a large dinosaur here, there must be a bunch

1009
00:59:59,800 --> 01:00:02,840
Speaker 1: of dinosaur bones in there. Uh, which gets into a

1010
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:04,919
Speaker 1: whole other idea like, how would you make sense of

1011
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 1: of Godzilla if you if you're taking a geo mythological approach,

1012
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:10,880
Speaker 1: you might say, oh, they are inspired by dinosaurs, and

1013
01:00:10,880 --> 01:00:14,720
Speaker 1: they're a lot of dinosaurs, which is partially true. Godzilla

1014
01:00:14,880 --> 01:00:18,640
Speaker 1: is undeniably informed by our love of something like a

1015
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:21,360
Speaker 1: torontos arts rex. But on the other hand, there's a

1016
01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:24,840
Speaker 1: lot more to the fabric of Godzilla's identity as well,

1017
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:31,200
Speaker 1: tying in the horrors of atomic war and radioactive anxiety. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

1018
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:34,600
Speaker 1: That's a great example of the sort of complex, poly

1019
01:00:34,720 --> 01:00:37,720
Speaker 1: functional nature of myth, and the polygenic nature of myth.

1020
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 1: It comes from all over the place. Godzilla isn't just

1021
01:00:40,840 --> 01:00:42,800
Speaker 1: that somebody saw a t rex skeleton. Yeah. You got

1022
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:44,600
Speaker 1: to be careful when you're playing with myth, because if

1023
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:48,440
Speaker 1: you approach it from a very you know, one dimensional framework,

1024
01:00:48,480 --> 01:00:53,400
Speaker 1: you're you're you're playing with a multidimensional object. Uh. I mean,

1025
01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 1: I imagine even that Benny Jessrits have some problems with this.

1026
01:00:57,880 --> 01:01:00,840
Speaker 1: I mean what else about today apart from our radioactive

1027
01:01:00,840 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 1: waste storage facilities? What else about today? Can you imagine

1028
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:07,160
Speaker 1: Let's say, you know, mad Max scenario happens, and we

1029
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:10,800
Speaker 1: lose a lot of the connection with with history and culture,

1030
01:01:10,880 --> 01:01:14,200
Speaker 1: and future generations are just dealing with our remains and

1031
01:01:14,280 --> 01:01:18,200
Speaker 1: our artifacts to try and figure out what happened. What

1032
01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:21,560
Speaker 1: geo myths might they have about the present day, What

1033
01:01:21,560 --> 01:01:26,400
Speaker 1: what mythological creatures would would they invent when coming upon

1034
01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:32,200
Speaker 1: a Google server farm? Oh m hmm, man, I don't know.

1035
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:37,280
Speaker 1: I mean maybe transformers, Yeah, I mean transformers are either

1036
01:01:37,400 --> 01:01:39,760
Speaker 1: robots that turn into cars or cars that turn into robots.

1037
01:01:39,760 --> 01:01:43,720
Speaker 1: I mean they're real world technological objects that become un

1038
01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:49,760
Speaker 1: a real sentient robot creatures. So that might be a

1039
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:54,120
Speaker 1: complex one for for future commentators to figure out what

1040
01:01:54,360 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 1: a transformer and why? Well yeah, I mean it's so

1041
01:01:57,080 --> 01:01:59,720
Speaker 1: when I think about a server farm and I imagine, okay,

1042
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:03,480
Speaker 1: so I have no scientific knowledge, I have no technological knowledge.

1043
01:02:03,480 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 1: I've just come across this facility. The one thing that

1044
01:02:06,680 --> 01:02:09,200
Speaker 1: seems to be clear about it is it's a gigantic

1045
01:02:09,240 --> 01:02:12,840
Speaker 1: building and nobody lived inside it, and so it mu's okay, Yeah,

1046
01:02:12,880 --> 01:02:15,240
Speaker 1: so you're talking specifically about such like the server farms

1047
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:16,760
Speaker 1: that show up and so they still look on valley

1048
01:02:16,800 --> 01:02:20,439
Speaker 1: where it's just a massive, massive room with just rows

1049
01:02:20,520 --> 01:02:25,920
Speaker 1: upon rows of these boxes. Right, sure, I don't know,

1050
01:02:25,960 --> 01:02:28,400
Speaker 1: I mean, surely you can think of something strange about that.

1051
01:02:28,680 --> 01:02:31,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean instantly, see it's amazed for a minute.

1052
01:02:31,840 --> 01:02:37,800
Speaker 1: Our Yeah, or you are a tomb of some kind. Um,

1053
01:02:37,800 --> 01:02:39,600
Speaker 1: maybe it is a tomb because the people of the

1054
01:02:39,600 --> 01:02:42,800
Speaker 1: past have uploaded their consciousness into these servers and that's

1055
01:02:42,840 --> 01:02:45,200
Speaker 1: where they still exist. Oh yeah, it's running in there

1056
01:02:45,240 --> 01:02:49,360
Speaker 1: and they're just having imagine how detached from reality their

1057
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:52,800
Speaker 1: simulations are at this point. You know, I'm really curious

1058
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:56,320
Speaker 1: now to hear what y'all out there, what you listeners

1059
01:02:56,320 --> 01:02:58,120
Speaker 1: are going to have to say about the geo myths

1060
01:02:58,120 --> 01:03:00,840
Speaker 1: of the present. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure I'm missing some

1061
01:03:00,920 --> 01:03:04,480
Speaker 1: really key ones because there's there's just so much there's

1062
01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:06,320
Speaker 1: so much weird stuff that we have in our pop

1063
01:03:06,320 --> 01:03:09,200
Speaker 1: culture these days that is much like a myth. It

1064
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:12,520
Speaker 1: is it is poly functional. It's not just you know,

1065
01:03:12,600 --> 01:03:15,000
Speaker 1: the cartoon image that it portrays. It's informed by all

1066
01:03:15,040 --> 01:03:18,480
Speaker 1: these other ideas and uh uh, And certainly when we

1067
01:03:18,480 --> 01:03:20,440
Speaker 1: get into some of the strange memes out there, it

1068
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:25,120
Speaker 1: means that continually evolve. Uh both intentionally and just as

1069
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:30,680
Speaker 1: a byproduct of life online. Absolutely, uh So, Robert. One

1070
01:03:30,760 --> 01:03:35,040
Speaker 1: last question, how convinced are you looking at these arguments

1071
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:39,800
Speaker 1: for mythological creatures inspired by fossils and and remains of

1072
01:03:39,840 --> 01:03:43,120
Speaker 1: extinct animals? What what do you think do they figure

1073
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:45,760
Speaker 1: in and the creation of this these mythological creatures, and

1074
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:49,440
Speaker 1: if so, how often I tend to buy more. I'm

1075
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:52,840
Speaker 1: not saying that that they never play into the creation

1076
01:03:53,000 --> 01:03:56,720
Speaker 1: of myths, but I tend to favor that midpoint argument

1077
01:03:56,800 --> 01:04:01,200
Speaker 1: where where some version of the myth pre existing and

1078
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:05,880
Speaker 1: then fossils are observed and the to inform each other.

1079
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:10,440
Speaker 1: I think that makes a lot of sense. Um. I

1080
01:04:10,640 --> 01:04:13,360
Speaker 1: think I'm somewhere in the middle too. I'm not I'm

1081
01:04:13,400 --> 01:04:16,600
Speaker 1: not wholly on board, but I really love these ideas.

1082
01:04:16,600 --> 01:04:19,160
Speaker 1: I very much want them to be true because I

1083
01:04:19,200 --> 01:04:22,000
Speaker 1: love the idea of people reckoning with the geo facts

1084
01:04:22,040 --> 01:04:26,720
Speaker 1: of their surroundings by using the darkest parts of their imagination. Yeah,

1085
01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:28,880
Speaker 1: and you know it ties in nicely with the episode

1086
01:04:28,920 --> 01:04:32,400
Speaker 1: we also recorded this week on our Desire for complete

1087
01:04:32,440 --> 01:04:36,120
Speaker 1: narratives and complete understandings, like there's a there's a beautiful

1088
01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:40,320
Speaker 1: simplicity to geo mythology that that is so attractive and

1089
01:04:40,360 --> 01:04:46,720
Speaker 1: that you could just so succinctively explain this fantastic creature. Uh, However,

1090
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:49,560
Speaker 1: it seems it seems very rare that such as succinct

1091
01:04:50,240 --> 01:04:55,280
Speaker 1: explanation would be the only explanation for for something that

1092
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:57,480
Speaker 1: that has so many facets to it. I think they

1093
01:04:57,480 --> 01:05:00,640
Speaker 1: convinced me on the Golden Chicken, the Golden I'd like

1094
01:05:00,680 --> 01:05:03,840
Speaker 1: to go up. Yeah, um, yeah, that's a good one,

1095
01:05:04,840 --> 01:05:07,760
Speaker 1: all right. So hey, if you want to check out

1096
01:05:08,040 --> 01:05:09,680
Speaker 1: some of the some links to some of the things

1097
01:05:09,680 --> 01:05:12,440
Speaker 1: we're talking about here, maybe an image or two, heading

1098
01:05:12,480 --> 01:05:14,000
Speaker 1: over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's

1099
01:05:14,040 --> 01:05:17,520
Speaker 1: the mothership. That's where you'll find all the podcast episodes,

1100
01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:20,320
Speaker 1: including the landing page for this episode with those cool

1101
01:05:20,360 --> 01:05:23,760
Speaker 1: outgoing links, and you'll also find links to our social

1102
01:05:23,760 --> 01:05:26,120
Speaker 1: media accounts. Itch just Facebook is Twitter, We are blow

1103
01:05:26,160 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 1: the mind on both of those. Follow us on Instagram,

1104
01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:32,640
Speaker 1: follow us on tumbler. We maintain all those social media accounts,

1105
01:05:32,840 --> 01:05:34,320
Speaker 1: and if you want to get in touch with us

1106
01:05:34,320 --> 01:05:37,400
Speaker 1: to let us know your ideas, about the future, geomethology

1107
01:05:37,400 --> 01:05:40,280
Speaker 1: of the present, or any other reactions to this episode.

1108
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:42,280
Speaker 1: You can email us at blow the Mind, at how

1109
01:05:42,320 --> 01:05:55,200
Speaker 1: step words dot com, or more almost empathons of other topics.

1110
01:05:55,360 --> 01:06:11,640
Speaker 1: Does that house stop works dot com? Let them five

1111
01:06:11,800 --> 01:06:14,040
Speaker 1: ft four point spot U.