RE: historical origins of BCF

["Tracy L. Ford" <dino.hunter@home.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
David Marjanovic
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2001 1:39 PM
To: The Dinosaur Mailing List
Subject: Re: historical origins of BCF

* Yes, like ancient Greeks thought that mammoth skulls were cyclops
skulls.>>
>
> Well, no Greek ever saw a cyclops, but we have all seen birds. The Greeks
> >did< recognize that mammoths were unlike anything else they had ever seen
> and acted appropriately within their cultural milieu. If the term
"mammoth"
> weren't so entrenched, one could actually make a case for renaming
mammoths
> "cyclopes."

Not mammoths!!!
The dwarf elephants of various Mediterranean islands, *Elephas falconeri*
and suchlike.<<

Ah, I don't know about that. From the pictures from the book, Cadbury, D.,
2000, Terrible Lizard, The first dinosaur hunters and the birth of a new
science: A John Macrae book, Herny Holt and Company, 374pp, there were
pictures of a MAMMOTH skeleton next to a Human skeleton and it was huge. A
dwarf elephant wouldn't even come up to a man's chin standing like that!
Sure there were dwarf elephant skeletons, but I wouldn't doubt that they
found skeletons of larger elephants back then. Of course my book is buried
right now and I can't double check...


Tracy L. Ford
P. O. Box 1171
Poway Ca  92074