WEBVTT - The Bone Collectors, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.160 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:16.200 name is Robert. 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:17.680 Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:22.080 And as we continue our Halloween seasonal offerings, we have 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.160 to ask ourselves a question, is there anything more suitably 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:30.720 creepy than a vast collection of bones? I have a 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.760 feeling that a number of you, like us, have found yourself, 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.560 especially this month, this month, more than like any past Halloween, 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.680 have found yourself wandering through your neighborhood and neighborhood yards 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.199 are just littered with plastic bones. Like every year, the 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.440 skeleton decorations just get more and more intense, more gigantic. 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.120 Some of these yards are just littered with plastic bones. 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:56.520 I can't remember if I've already mentioned it this year, 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.480 but my daughter, who is very Halloween brained at this moment, 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:06.920 is also especially skeleton brained, which she calls selkins selkin brain. 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.440 So we have to go around the neighborhood to buy 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:14.560 a request to see particular skeletons in particular yards. There 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:18.840 are some that are better than others. There are scary selkins, 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:25.240 there are cute selkans. There are beautiful selkins. There's a 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.679 whole taxonomy, and I don't know exactly what the criteria are, 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.720 but she does. And it's clear that while a subset 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:35.040 are considered scary, some are not scary at all. Some 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.640 some are just beautiful things to admire. There. You know, 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:39.679 it's like people are putting Christmas lights up. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:45.840 Yeah, I mean, it is fascinating how the symbol of 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.400 the skull, of the skeleton of bones, or the skull 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:54.880 and bones. You know, at a very basic level, it 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:59.960 always means death, but there are so many different tweaks 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:06.000 on that, and so culturally pop culturally, skulls and bones 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.440 can be very empowering. They can be very life affirming, 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:13.560 They can be fun, they can be hilarious, even if 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.360 there is like a very like basic message about mortality 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:19.120 at the bottom of everything. 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:23.160 Have we ever talked before about the what I take 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:27.920 to be implied humor in all of these anatomically incorrect 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:32.800 skeletons that proliferate different kinds of animal, skeletons of animals 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.440 that don't actually have internal skeletons, like you know, an 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:38.079 octopus skeleton or a. 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:42.320 Skeleton the most ridiculous. But I've also seen some like 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.120 there's one of an owl where the owl has its ears, 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:48.640 so you need to tell by its profile that it's 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:49.560 an owl skeleton. 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.640 There are dogs around our neighborhood that have cute, like 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.520 fluffy dog ears in bone dog skeletons with the ears 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.960 are phone ears, and I think that's because, Yeah, you 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.120 wouldn't know it was a dog necessarily if it didn't 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:04.880 have the ears. 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.560 Yeah, cat looks solid, though. We have a fake cat 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:10.720 skeleton on our porch and I'm not sure it's one 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:15.359 hundred percent anatomically correct, but I don't think it has 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.519 any fake ears, but maybe it does. I'm going to 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:19.400 check after a record and see if I've been duped. 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.840 The fact that we have to put these non bone 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.840 things onto skeletons to make them recognizable as the animals 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:32.160 we know in life gives you real perspective on paleo 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.280 art and reconstructions of dinosaurs and stuff like. You know, 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.320 you have to realize how much soft tissue there is, 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:43.520 and that there is some guesswork involved in reconstructing the 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.640 body of an extinct animal when all you've got is 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.720 an imprint or fossil of the hard parts. I mean, 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:51.480 in some cases we actually do know, because you know, 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.880 there are clues that you can get through fossil evidence 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:56.720 of what the soft tissue parts may have been, but 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:57.600 not in every case. 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:00.840 Yeah, later on in this episode, we'll be talking a creature, 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.560 a prehistoric creature. And I was looking around to see 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:06.560 if there was a nice bit of paleo art to 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.800 throw into our outline, just for you and me to 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.040 look at. And you know, I just wasn't. I wasn't 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.040 taken by any out so I just included a picture 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:15.680 of the skull. And it's like, the skull is the 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:19.800 hard data in this case. Anyway, the skull, I think 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:24.040 really illustrates a lot of what we'll be discussing regarding 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:24.520 the creature. 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.039 But clearly skulls and bones are a big part of 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.800 the imagery of modern horror. In fact, we're going to 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.800 be talking about a weird house cinema movie this week 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.760 that has a great bone body reveal. It's got a 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:39.720 lady with a fleshy head and at one point they 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.080 pull the cloak back and you see her her body 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:44.800 is just bones, yes, or it's not just bones. I 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:46.719 don't know. It's bones and some gungk. 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:47.640 But mostly bones. 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.359 Yes, bones, bones are revealed at least Yeah. 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.440 Yeah, there are so many great examples from especially from 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.720 horror cinema and horror media that I think we can 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.800 turn to where bones is especially big. Heaps of bones. 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:06.280 Collections of bones are very very important, and they can 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.960 read in different ways. So I thought we might run 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.680 through just a few examples before we get into the 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.360 meat of our episode here. But you know, speaking of meat, 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:16.800 I think one of the great ones is, of course, 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.359 nineteen seventy four is the Texas chainsaw Massacre, where we 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.640 have our characters, you know, slowly approaching the saw your 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.240 home and as they begin to you know, creep every 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.880 closer to the house in that ominous generator that's that's running, 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:36.600 we begin to see like little bone trinkets hanging from limbs, 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:38.640 and then when we get into the house itself, there's 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:40.800 also like more things made out of bones. 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.640 Yeah, the saw your household is not wasteful. They don't 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.200 like to throw things out, you know, they make use 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:47.880 of what they got. 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.520 Yeah. Yeah. In other cases, we you know, we have 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.720 plenty of examples of essentially a monster's layer where there 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:59.240 are a lot of bones. One great example that I've 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:02.000 always I've always liked back from my days when I 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:03.720 think read the story for the first time in junior. 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.800 High would be the nineteen seventy Stephen King short story 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:10.320 Graveyard Shift, as well as the nineteen ninety film adaptation 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.680 that I quite like. There's eventually you end up in 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.919 a vast subterranean chamber. It's just filled with human and 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:16.720 animal bones. 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.320 Is that the one is about like a giant rat 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:19.960 or bat. 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:23.120 Ultimately there is a giant rat or bat, and then 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:24.240 just a lot of rats. 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:29.000 Yeah, yeah, you know, it's funny. These first two examples 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.680 you mentioned highlight what I would say are the main 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:37.800 two genres of bone collections in horror. One, exemplified by 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:42.880 the Texas Chainsaw massacre, is the intentionally curated bone collection, 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.440 often where artifacts have been fashioned out of bone, or 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:50.000 where bones are placed in a particular arrangement. And then 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.600 the other is the midden or the pile of bones, 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:58.560 where bones are just accumulating haphazardly, And they both suggest horror, 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.320 but in very different ways. One is a kind of 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:05.160 chaotic biological horror that just suggests a kind of like 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.320 some animal is just like eating the flesh and stripping 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:10.840 the bones and here's where the bones end up, whereas 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.720 the former suggests a creepy fascination that suggests aberrant behavior 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:16.440 and obsession. 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.240 Yeah, I think this is a good distinction to make. Yeah, 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:24.200 there's certainly if there's a collection of bones somewhere and 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:28.000 there's some sort of intelligence behind it, it's not necessarily 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.120 an intelligence we want to interact with. You know, it 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:35.600 falls under the heading of like trophy taking, and you know, 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.680 we're not really going to go in that direction probably 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.560 with these episodes. But I think there are plenty of 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:44.160 examples of that to point too in human history. But 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.520 then the other example being like whoa, here's a place 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.960 where there are a bunch of bones. A bunch of 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.680 bones means a lot of death. Maybe a lot of 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.960 death happened at once, maybe a lot of death has 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:02.280 taken place over time. But you know, obviously humans and 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:06.000 are myth making and our supernatural thinking, those places can 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.000 often be interpreted as places of bad vibes, places that 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:14.040 might be haunted, cursed, or you know, in some manner 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.640 given supernatural weight, they can also be rather holy places 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:21.640 in their own right as well. But also the idea 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:23.080 of a place where there are a lot of bones 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.960 that could also spell the possibility of a very real 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.880 life danger. What if the thing that is producing all 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.600 of these bones is still here some manner of predator 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.120 or predators that could threaten us directly. I mean, that's 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.880 getting into some of our basic hardwiring as an organism. 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.800 Yeah, that's exactly right. There are sort of ecological implications 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:46.800 whenever you see a collection of bones that kind of 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.880 suggests what else may be about in the area. But 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.640 then there's another thing, which is just the self reflective 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.680 version of the reaction to seeing human bones in particular, 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.120 which is I think of uh, the you know the 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:05.199 quote from uh, you know, the story of Wilhelm Runken 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.000 when he first you know, creates the X ray machine 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.079 and he gets an X ray of his wife's hand 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.160 and she she looks through on the plate and sees 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.000 her bones printed on the on the image. Uh, and 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.080 she says, I have seen my own death. You know, 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.560 you're not supposed to see your own bones unless and 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.079 you don't unless there is some kind of catastrophic imagery. Yeah. 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.920 I was gonna say injury, but yes, catastrophic imagery as well. 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.160 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought you were going to say 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:33.240 if we do see our own bones. They better be dancing. 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.200 It better be in carniform, you know. I should also 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.320 mention the killer rabbit from a money python in The 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:38.800 Holy Grail. 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:39.800 That's another great example. 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:40.880 Just look at the bones. 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:52.079 Look at the bone. 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.520 Now, we put together a whole list of additional horror 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.360 movies that had some sort of bone collecting going on 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.360 in them. We may come back to some of these 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.120 as we get into specific examples, because we are, of 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.400 course going to dip into the natural world here into 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.800 the real world. And I thought a great place to 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:17.360 start would be with a creature of prehistoric caves, a 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:23.120 creature that accumulated bones in such caves and would have 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:28.360 been encountered by our ancestors. And I think this is 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:32.920 particularly potent to think about because these would have This 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.640 would be an example of a bone littered environment that 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:41.240 our ancestors would have seen, would have thought about, would 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.800 have processed, and also a creature that we would have 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:48.560 had direct interaction with. I'm going to be talking about 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:54.680 the cave hyena. The cave hyena consisted of two extinct species. 0:10:55.520 --> 0:11:02.679 There's crocuta crocuta spellia and crocuta crocuta old Tema, and 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.960 they would have ranged across Eurasia during the middle to 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.679 late plus to seen, an age that saw the expansion 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.760 of modern humans and the extinction of archaic humans, including 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:18.320 the Neanderthals. There of course relatives of the modern African 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:24.160 spotted hyena that is Crocuta crocuta, and there are also 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:29.120 three other extant hyaena species, as well as other extinct 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:31.800 species that they're related to, such as the giant short 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:36.400 faced hyena. Now, the modern spotted hyena alone is an 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:40.680 impressive organism. I think everyone has some knowledge of this creature, 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.320 hopefully more from documentaries than maybe going to zoos and 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:46.560 so forth, as opposed to just the lion king. 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.480 But I thought you were going to say just having 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:50.679 them as pets. 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:52.680 Or no, you know, please don't have them as pets. 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.160 But you know, this is definitely an impressive and fascinating 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.560 organism that we could we could easily do an an 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:02.640 entire episode on, and they're more than capable of inspiring 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:04.880 myth and legend on their own. I mean, they're large, 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.920 scavenging carnivores with a wide vocal range. They can make 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:12.680 very perplexing sounds, and they're also noted and have long 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.920 been noted for their propensity for a grave robbing, and 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:20.360 sometimes they've been known to opportunistically prey on live humans. 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.640 They are voracious bone eaters, and I'm to understand they 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:28.320 can digest all organic components of bone, not just the marrow. 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.560 So they are, you know, basically like the idea of 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.720 like a graveyard ghoule is very much a humanoid take 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:35.680 on a hyena. 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:40.880 But do I understand correctly with the spotted hyena, it 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.680 not only gnaws bones to get the meat off, It 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:48.440 actually eats the bones themselves. It crunches up the bone 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:49.960 and digests the whole thing. 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.959 Yeah, that's that's how it goes down. And you can 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.600 mentioned skulls earlier. You can look up the you know, 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:01.920 certainly the skull of a modern spotted hyena, but also 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.520 look up the skulls of any of these prehistoric hyenas 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:08.760 and you'll just see how robust they are. And you 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:10.800 can you can really take one look at this skull 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.360 and realize, oh yeah, this is a bone muncher. This 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.160 is a bone munching machine. Just look at those jobs. 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.000 This head is like the machine press that they crushed 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.120 the terminator in at the end of the first movie. 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:26.679 Yes, yeah, exactly. So again, they're very fascinating creatures and 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.000 they have They've inspired all sorts of different folk beliefs, legends, 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:35.720 and mythologies. Ancient writers discuss them quite a bit also 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.760 got a fair bit wrong about them, especially considering their 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:43.720 gender and sexuality. There are these various misnomers and in 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.440 ancient writings about how they would they were they were 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.960 like bisexual or hemaphroditic, or you know, various takes on 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.439 this just obviously a classic case of of the observers 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.480 not really knowing what they're observing and looking at with 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.959 a particular organ. But then there are all these other 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:05.199 crazy ideas as well, such as I'm just gonna read 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:06.800 a little bit from our old friend plenty of the 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.840 elder here. Okay, a number of other remarkable facts about 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:14.880 it the hyena are reported, but the most remarkable are 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:19.520 that among the shepherd's homesteads, it simulates human speech and 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.240 picks up the name of one of them so as 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:24.840 to call him to come out of doors and tear 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:31.880 him in pieces. What And also that it imitates a 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:35.240 person being sick to attract the dogs so that it 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:39.320 may attack them. That this animal alone, digs up graves 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.520 in search of corpses, that a female is seldom caught, 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:47.320 that its eyes have a thousand variations and alterations of color. Moreover, 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.800 that when its shadow falls on dogs, they are struck dumb, 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:53.960 and that it has certain magic arts by which it 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.600 causes every animal at which it gazes three times to 0:14:57.640 --> 0:14:59.080 stand rooted to the spot. 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.560 The last part is that a metaphor does he say, 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.040 does he mean the animals literally grow roots? 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.280 I'm going to assume it's not going to that link. 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.280 But but the idea I guess is that they they 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:14.080 had they have the power to essentially hypnotize with their gaze. 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:16.120 Yeah, look three times in its freeze tag. 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:18.480 Yeah, I mean they're alarming animals. 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:18.920 Uh. 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:19.480 Sure. 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.320 And some of the footage and and images I've seen, 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:26.680 and certainly again they have that extended vocal range. They 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.880 create very strange sounds that we often compare to laughter. 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.240 And you know, they're not alone in this. There are 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:37.880 various other organisms that make sounds that remind us of 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:43.440 human human laughter, human conversation, and it can be very uncanny. 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.560 You can almost sense the telephone game in this reporting. 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.640 They do actually make strange sounds that could sound kind 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.560 of human in ways, but here this this gets escalated 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.560 to they say your name and call you outside. 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:57.360 Yeah. 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.480 Likewise, the whole bit about them being the only creatures 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.160 to rob human graves, I mean, they're various creatures that 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.960 if they can, if they can dig up a body, 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.960 they will do so and get to it, you know. 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:13.400 So it's not just in the hyaenas. And then also 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.960 they are known to sometimes make opportunistic attacks against humans. 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:22.520 They may in some cases become man eaters. But again 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:23.480 they're not alone in them. 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.000 But to be clear, do we think that plenty here 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.840 is talking about like the African spotted hyaena or is 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.920 he talking about an extinct variety of Hyaena. 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.040 I believe he's talking about you know, sub Saharan African 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:39.560 spotted hyaenas here. Okay, thus sort of the game of 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:42.880 telephone in places here. Yeah, but yeah, suffice to say, 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.040 it's a species that certainly invites mystery, and they occupy 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.480 a number of roles in the traditional beliefs of people 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.360 who have long lived beside them. You know, some fearsome, 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:54.560 but also there are plenty of examples that are either 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:59.440 ambivalent or even protective in their attitude regarding human beings, 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.320 so they're not just batties. So there's more than just 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:07.560 the lion king in play when we consider myth making 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.600 in legends with hyaenas. Sure, now I want to come 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:14.119 back though, to, of course, cave hyenas, because modern hyaenas 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:18.240 are broadly considered habitat generalists. You know, they may reside 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.880 in they may reside in dens that they've dug out 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:24.800 of the earth. They may reside in caves, they may 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:29.680 lay around on rocky outcrops and various other locations. They're 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:33.680 generally quite flexible. Wherever they make their den, they may 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.400 bring carcasses and bones back for further consumption and therefore 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:40.600 litter them in that environment. And then we have the 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:46.239 cave hyenas. And the name might easily summon the idea that, okay, well, 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:51.800 these are hyenas that exclusively lived in caves, and therefore 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.120 there's some sort of a cave specialist. But this too 0:17:56.160 --> 0:18:00.560 would be incorrect. So cave hyenas, despite their name, they 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:04.080 could also make dens in various other places, and did, 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.560 but their use of cave dens is particularly pronounced. And 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:14.919 these environments have served as time capsules, preserving the littered remains, 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.040 the bones left over from their habitation there. 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.080 That makes sense. So because the caves protect what the 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:25.440 hyaenas did inside there to some extent, that evidence is preserved, 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.480 and so we have an idea of what cave hyenas 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:29.320 were doing when they were in caves. 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:31.720 Yeah, and a lot of what we've learned about cave 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:34.040 hyenas has come from these environments, and we've learned a 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:36.480 lot about the animals that they preyed on from these environments. 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:39.119 But the cave hyenas themselves, they would have been They 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:43.960 were larger, heavier creatures compared to modern spotted hyaenas, and 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:48.240 they were considered apex predators in their own right alongside 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.680 the likes of the cave lion. They were probably less 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.840 skilled at running after prey or running away with meat 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.719 and bone compared to modern day spotted hyaenas, but they 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:03.200 would have been really good at dragging away much larger carcasses. 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:05.720 So you know, they were essentially you can think of 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:10.920 them as beefier and therefore better able to drag away 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.560 big bodies, big pieces of meat. And this was a 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:19.600 time when multiple large mammal species thrived and provided carcasses 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:21.680 on a regular basis to sustain them. 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.040 So can you think of them as the tractor model 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:25.240 rather than the sports car. 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:27.960 Yeah, yeah, I think that would be fair. Like there 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:30.560 were a lot of big bodies that would occasionally drop 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:34.240 to the ground, maybe with a little help, certainly with 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.120 a little help either from cave hyenas or various other 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:40.639 carnivore creatures. And then these guys would have been just 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:45.160 really good at dragging the meat, dragging the bodies back 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:49.359 to the caves where they could take their time breaking 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.239 down the bodies. And then also I'm to understand there 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.560 would be a certain amount of a preservation in there 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.639 as well, so sort of a cold storage environment, you know, 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:01.800 I don't think that was the main point, but there 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:03.280 would be some of that in play as well. 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:05.840 Yeah, low gear, torque, not speed. 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:10.879 Yeah, And so they'd occupy specific cave mouths on and off, 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:15.920 and that's key for thousands of years, seemingly displaced by 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:21.080 and displacing other occupiers, including Neanderthals at times, and also 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:25.639 perhaps cohabitating certain caves with other creatures, either kind of 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:29.159 at the same time or in phases, and in the 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:33.720 process accumulating just great quantities of animal bones that would 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.119 just build up over time. Nobody's dragging those carcasses or 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.640 those bones back out. They're just building up and providing 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:44.720 this ultimately wealth of data for paleontologists to come in 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.200 the distant future from their time. 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:49.959 So I assume you have examples of caves like this 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:51.560 where their middens have been found. 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:55.560 Yeah, yeah, there was. In twenty twenty three, it was 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:59.080 reported that the Siberian there's a cave near the Siberian 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.760 city of Cacassia, and it was said to contain some 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.600 four hundred kilograms or eight hundred and eighty two pounds 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.160 of bones estimated, And this would have included the likes 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:17.560 of mammoths, rhinos, bison, yaks, deer, gazelle, ancient brown bears, 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:21.800 and then various smaller creatures like foxes, wolves, every you know, 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.639 all the way down. These guys apparently weren't too proud 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.680 to drag you know, just about anything back to the layer. Now, 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.240 there are various other cave hyena dens that are you know, 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:38.280 important sites for paleontology, such as Zulithan Cave in Bavaria 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:41.320 in Germany. This site is thought to have been a 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:45.760 major cave bear den with cave hyenas, wolves and cave 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:49.240 lions co occupying or scavenging over time. 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:54.840 Now, if we know that different types of carnivores or 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:59.239 predators occupied these caves over different times, how are we 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:03.000 able to identi when they were occupied by different types 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:06.439 of predators or which predator it was that was responsible 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:08.800 for a specific kill or for eating a carcass that's 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:09.600 left in the cave. 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.320 Well, a part of it comes down to, you know, 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:14.480 looking at the bones and seeing the wear and tear 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:16.679 on them, because you know they would have been gnawing 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.520 on them. We can essentially, you know, use byte data 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.520 to understand this, like, Okay, what's been chewing on this bone? Well, 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.879 it looks like it was cave hyenus, So that's part 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:29.479 of it. And then there's just various other evidence in 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:32.960 the way that the the different layers of sediment have 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:36.280 built up and where the bones are in caves. I 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:39.240 was looking at a paper by Dietrix and Zach from 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:42.600 two thousand and six and the Bulletin of Geosciences. This 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:46.520 particular paper was looking at a at a cave in 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:50.600 the Bohemian Karst. This is in the Czech Republic and 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:53.960 like they had a nice little illustration in this paper 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:55.760 that I included here for you, Joe that kind of 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:59.919