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00:08people have always thrilled to tales of monsters but there's nothing in myth that can compare for
00:15sheer wonder with creatures from tyrannosaurs to woolly mammoths that once actually existed
00:22today we know that life on this planet evolved over many millions of years and we have some
00:27idea at least of how prehistoric creatures once actually looked but such knowledge is comparatively
00:33recent when people in the past came across the fossilized bones of large vanished animals
00:40it begged any number of questions what sort of creatures could they possibly have come from
00:46how old were these skeletal remains above all perhaps what did they mean just like us ancient
00:56peoples were fascinated by the giant bones they found in the ground like us they obsessed about
01:02their origins in this program I'm going to explore the ways in which our ancestors sought to make sense
01:10of the remains of dinosaurs and other giant prehistoric creatures and how they tried to
01:15reconcile such finds with their own understanding of life on earth though these explanations were wrong
01:24doesn't mean that they deserve our contempt just the opposite science begins in wonder and the
01:31yearning to fathom what may at first seem unfathomable in that sense at any rate our ancestors did have
01:36something of the paleontologist about them and in one fundamental respect they were absolutely spot on
01:44monsters had indeed once trodden the earth
01:55i made this uh masterpiece when i was five and looking at it now i think well i was never
02:02going to
02:02cut it as a sculptor but i do remember the uh the intensity of yearning a kind of love really
02:10that went
02:11into the making of it how desperately i wanted to see a dinosaur
02:21going out from my garden the most exotic thing i could hope to see was a cow
02:26but if i shut my eyes i could imagine there was a long-necked brachiosaur reaching higher than the trees
02:34a horned and crested triceratops making the fields shake and of course if i was feeling particularly
02:43ghoulish a blood-beslathered tyrannosaur why was the present day so dull why didn't i live in a world full
02:55of swamps and pterosaurs and perpetually exploding volcanoes
03:04why couldn't my life be mesozoic
03:08and in a way all my prayers have been answered 35 years too late for my seven-year-old self
03:14but visit a museum today and the displays have never been more animatronic
03:22nor for 65 million years has flesh been put more convincingly on the bones of dinosaurs like this
03:29tyrannosaurus rex
03:36cgi the dinosaur lover's best friend
03:45now the truth is of course that no human being has ever seen a living dinosaur
03:51this is the peabody museum in new haven on the east coast of the united states
03:59it contains this fabulous mural painted in the 1940s dinosaurs first appear here around 230 million years ago
04:10and they last another 160 million years right the way up to there where no more dinosaurs
04:17of course there are no humans anywhere in this mural homo sapiens didn't appear on earth for another 65
04:25million years but always and it's certainly not just me who has it that yearning in the imagination
04:33that desire to know what these extraordinary creatures had truly looked like
04:40and perhaps that's why in the kind of science fiction story to which i was addicted as a boy
04:45our prehistoric ancestors were always being shown alongside dinosaurs total fantasy of course but still
04:53it made me wonder
04:57when cavemen came across the bones of dinosaurs what did they make of them it's an abiding mystery by
05:03definition they wrote nothing down but there were some prehistoric peoples for all that who survived into historic times
05:13take north america for instance where hunter-gatherer tribes that for generations had been roaming the
05:19great plains had long observed fossilized bones weathering out of the rocks and invented stories to explain them
05:28to them
05:29adrian mayer is a historian of ancient fossil hunting with a high regard for the scientific
05:33abilities of the native peoples who lived in america before columbus peoples who by and large
05:39were pre-literate, prehistoric.
05:44Their theories and their speculations and their myths,
05:48oral traditions, preserved in oral traditions over generations,
05:51over thousands of years,
05:53they were based on observation over time.
05:55They knew anatomy.
05:57They compared.
05:58They tried to imagine the creatures while alive,
06:02how they behaved, what they looked like, what kind of habitat.
06:05They actually had a sense of deep time.
06:07They had a sense of different ages on the earth,
06:12past ages, before the appearance of present-day humans.
06:15Each age characterised by different fauna and flora,
06:20different landforms.
06:22These are all prototypes of modern science,
06:26although they were all in mythological language.
06:30Even in the 19th century,
06:32by which point bone hunting or paleontology
06:35had become an all-American obsession,
06:37these Stone Age myths were still being retold.
06:40And among those pricking up their ears
06:43were scientists such as Othniel Charles Marsh,
06:47the first director of the Peabody Museum.
06:50Marsh was one of the first great paleontologists
06:53and a genuine pioneer.
06:55He rode shotgun on the Great Plains,
06:58he hung out with Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull,
07:01and he was adopted as a blood brother by the Sioux.
07:05Wakasa Pahiuhu, they called him.
07:08He who digs up bones.
07:12Many of the dinosaurs in the Peabody were dug up in the 1870s,
07:16a time when the West really was very wild.
07:21Among the collection are the first specimens ever found of iconic species,
07:26like Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus,
07:29the dinosaur formerly known as Brontosaurus.
07:37Marsh's expeditions took him to the Badlands.
07:40There, in his hunt for fossils,
07:42he was drawing on the very latest in scientific research.
07:46But some of his sources were altogether more prehistoric.
07:51The Sioux and other Native American peoples too
07:54told stories of mysterious beasts,
07:58supernatural creatures,
08:00whose bones might be found scattered across the ground.
08:03But what had prompted these legends?
08:08From the Sioux, Marsh learned the legend of thunderhorses,
08:12creatures that galloped over storm clouds
08:14and made them echo with the crashing of their hooves.
08:19His fascination with such stories
08:21helped to win him the trust of Native Americans.
08:25In 1874, at a time of great tension,
08:28when the whites were encroaching on their lands,
08:30Marsh was able to employ a Sioux as his guide.
08:35He learned about some impressive bones found by the tribe.
08:39They said they were from strange creatures
08:41that had once lived in the land of the Sioux.
08:44Bones now turned to stone.
08:47Marsh was shown the bones of this magnificent beast,
08:51a colossal mammal some 12 feet long,
08:53which had lived around 35 million years ago
08:56and was indeed, amazingly enough, a relative of the horse.
09:01This is the very specimen that was shown to Marsh
09:04and in honour of the legends of the thunderhorse told him by the Sioux,
09:09he named the creature a brontotherium,
09:12a thunderbeast.
09:16Most intriguing of all, perhaps,
09:19were the tales told across the Great Plains,
09:22not of thunderhorses, but of thunderbirds,
09:26stories passed down the generations
09:28and still retold today.
09:31Long, long ago,
09:33when the two-leggeds were new to walking on Mother Earth,
09:37the thunderbirds were their friends and advisers.
09:41They were great beasts,
09:44with wingspans as long as two war canoes.
09:49They had sharp-pointed beaks with sharp-pointed teeth,
09:53and they lived in the sky,
09:56on the edge of the clouds.
09:59Many of these legends tell how the thunderbirds had,
10:03as their deadliest enemies,
10:05giant aquatic monsters.
10:08Now, at this same time,
10:11lived the water monsters.
10:14They were huge,
10:17shaped like a snake, with feet.
10:20They had a big horn on their head
10:23and spikes on the tip of their tail.
10:27It's surely suggestive
10:29that the stories often derive from regions of America
10:32which once, back in the age of the dinosaurs,
10:35were indeed covered by seas.
10:38Nowadays, the Great Plains
10:40consist of weathered sediment,
10:42complete with the skeletons of long-necked,
10:44marine reptiles called plesiosaurs,
10:48flying reptiles of the kind that were always carrying off Raquel Welch.
10:53And what do we find in Marsh's collection?
10:56A plesiosaur and a pterosaur,
10:59a pteranodon.
11:01What all this suggests is an intriguing possibility.
11:07Almost all of the tribes had stories
11:09about water monsters and sky creatures, thunderbirds.
11:14And, of course, these are personified violent forces of nature,
11:19thunder and lightning,
11:20very powerful forces of nature,
11:23and then flooding,
11:25which was supposedly caused by water monsters.
11:27And when they found very large bones,
11:32fossilised bones of extinct creatures
11:35eroding and weathering out of riverbanks and lake shores,
11:39they naturally thought that they must have been water creatures.
11:43And then when they also found fossilised shells and fish and turtles,
11:48they understood that this land had once been underwater.
11:52Now, it's not only on the Great Plains of America
11:55that we find evidence for a fascination
11:57on the part of pre-literate societies
11:59with the bones of vanished creatures.
12:02Go back far enough in time,
12:04and you find it on the opposite side of the Atlantic as well,
12:09in Greece.
12:13First and greatest of the Greek poets was Homer,
12:17but the two poems he wrote down
12:19some 2,800 years ago,
12:21the Iliad and the Odyssey,
12:23almost certainly contained material far older than that.
12:28Perhaps then,
12:29even before the time of Homer himself,
12:32people were telling the story
12:33of one of the most celebrated monsters
12:36in all Greek mythology.
12:38The story?
12:39Well, it's a thriller.
12:41The hero Odysseus,
12:42in his wanderings across the wine-dark sea,
12:45finds himself trapped in a cave
12:47by a hideous monster,
12:48a monster that snacks on human flesh
12:51and has in its forehead
12:52just a single circular eye.
12:55It's a cyclops.
13:02What is the trapped Odysseus to do?
13:05Well, he gets the cyclops drunk.
13:07Then he and his men take a large spike,
13:11they aim it over the cyclops' single eye.
13:14In goes the spike,
13:17splat goes the eye.
13:21Who could doubt the truth of such a story
13:24when there was evidence of the tale
13:26to be found in the earth?
13:30Now, of course,
13:32this isn't actually the skull of a one-eyed monster.
13:35It's the skull of an elephant.
13:36And this is the large nasal opening
13:39from which its trunk once extended.
13:44The Greeks didn't become familiar
13:46with real live elephants
13:47until the 4th century BC,
13:49long after the story of the cyclops first emerged.
13:55But we know from the fossil record
13:57that prehistoric species of elephant
14:00lived on Mediterranean islands
14:02long before humans were around.
14:06When ancient Greeks came across
14:08the preserved fossil skulls of these creatures,
14:11eroded from the rocks
14:12or perhaps dug up by a farmer,
14:14did they mistake the outsized skull
14:16for a giant's head
14:17and the large nasal cavity
14:19as a huge single eye socket?
14:25Is this what inspired Homer's tale
14:28of the island-dwelling giant cyclops?
14:31Now, no ancient source
14:33directly confirms the cyclops theory,
14:36but it seems eminently plausible nevertheless.
14:39Not only were there large bones
14:41to be found scattered across
14:42the entire sweep of the Mediterranean,
14:45but we know as well from other legends,
14:47from the writings of classical authors,
14:49that the Greeks did indeed take an interest
14:52in the fossil bones of giant beasts.
14:57On a few occasions,
14:59ancient writers wrote down
15:00what they thought of large bones.
15:02They are among the earliest surviving
15:04written records of paleontological knowledge.
15:07Take this,
15:08from The Life of Apollonius,
15:10by Philostratus.
15:14I agree that giants once existed
15:17because gigantic bodies
15:19are revealed all over Earth
15:20when mounds are broken open.
15:38This is the site of what,
15:40back in classical times,
15:40was one of the most celebrated buildings
15:42in the entire Greek world,
15:44the Temple of Hera
15:45on the Aegean island of Samos.
15:49But it wasn't just its scale and beauty
15:51that wowed the Greeks.
15:53It was famous as well for something else,
15:56a collection of giant bones.
15:59But where had they come from?
16:01Well, as everyone on Samos knew,
16:04their island had been the scene
16:05way back in ancient times
16:06of a quite spectacular battle,
16:08one that had been fought
16:10between an army
16:11of ferocious female warriors
16:13called Amazons
16:14and the god Dionysus.
16:16And what had Dionysus brought with him
16:19as backup?
16:20Nothing less
16:21than a war train
16:22of elephants.
16:32Panayma, the ancients
16:34called the site
16:34of this battle,
16:35the blood-soaked field.
16:42And its location?
16:43Well, its location
16:45seems to have been here.
16:48The soil,
16:49which elsewhere on Samos
16:50is a dirty white,
16:52here you can see
16:53is the colour of dried blood.
16:57And on either side of it,
16:58hills that are absolutely stuffed
17:01with prehistoric elephant bones.
17:04So what that implies
17:06is that this site
17:07was witnessed
17:08to an absolutely key event
17:10in the history of paleontology.
17:13The ancients
17:14who came across the bones here
17:15and explained them
17:16as the remains of elephants
17:18were blazing a trail
17:19that would be followed
17:20by 18th century
17:21by 19th century
17:22paleontologists.
17:24For the very first time,
17:26the fossils
17:26of long-lost megafauna
17:28were being identified
17:29correctly.
17:31Nor was that the limit
17:33of ancient Greek
17:34paleontological achievement.
17:36Take the evidence
17:37on this Corinthian vase
17:39from the 6th century BC,
17:41now in a Boston museum.
17:43Here's a brave hero,
17:45Heracles,
17:46coming to the rescue
17:47of Hisione,
17:48a princess of Troy,
17:49who is being menaced
17:51by a monster.
17:53Most art historians
17:54and specialists'
17:55vase paintings
17:56had identified
17:57this monster
17:59as a very poorly drawn
18:00sea monster
18:01peeking out of a cave.
18:04To me,
18:04it looked a lot
18:05like a fossil skull
18:07eroding out of a cliffside.
18:09You can see
18:10that it's disembodied,
18:11it has no body.
18:12So this monster
18:13looks the way it does
18:14not because the artist
18:15was rubbish
18:16at drawing monsters.
18:17You think that it
18:18might actually be
18:19the fossil of
18:20an actual beast?
18:22Well, you know,
18:23if you look at
18:23the other figures
18:24on the vase,
18:25the humans
18:26and the other animals,
18:28they're all
18:28very well drawn.
18:29And so,
18:30I think the artist
18:31was actually
18:32a good artist
18:32and he's given us
18:33a very good rendering
18:35of what a fossil skull
18:37would look like
18:38as it weathers
18:39out of a cliff.
18:40I think the model
18:42might have been
18:42a samotherium,
18:44which is a giant
18:45giraffe species.
18:46They lived in the Miocene.
18:48They left a lot of fossils
18:49in the Aegean
18:51on the islands
18:51in mainland Greece.
18:53That would be
18:53a very common fossil.
18:55Paleontologists noticed
18:56the large,
18:57empty eye socket,
18:58the broken away
19:00nasal area,
19:02which is a very
19:02realistic rendition
19:04of a skull
19:05that's been in the ground
19:06for a long time.
19:07The jagged teeth,
19:09the back of the skull,
19:11it really matches
19:12what a samotherium skull
19:14looked like.
19:15This appears to be
19:16the oldest surviving
19:17artistic representation
19:19of a fossil
19:20in Greek art.
19:22So what we have here
19:23is an object
19:23that's absolutely
19:24key significance
19:25in the history
19:26of paleontology.
19:27I think it's a really
19:28powerful evidence
19:29that fossils
19:31did influence
19:32the way Greeks
19:33thought about their myths.
19:35For it to have been
19:36drawn so realistically,
19:38the skull must have
19:39been in good condition.
19:40But how did the Greeks
19:41think it had been
19:42preserved like that
19:43in rock?
19:44One possible answer
19:46can be found
19:47in the story
19:47of a second princess
19:48rescued from a monster.
19:50This is a book
19:52that used to belong
19:53to my grandmother
19:54and if I open it here,
19:57there is a fabulous
19:59picture by the
20:00Victorian artist
20:01Lord Layton.
20:03And yes,
20:04it's true,
20:05there's a half-naked
20:05woman tied to a rock.
20:07But when I first
20:08came across this book
20:09back in my grandmother's
20:10house,
20:10I was still of an age
20:11to be far more
20:12interested in the fact
20:14that here
20:15was what seemed
20:16to be a dinosaur.
20:18In fact,
20:19it's a sea monster
20:20that was sent
20:21to ravage Joppa
20:22in what is now Israel
20:23after the local queen
20:24had been foolish enough
20:25to insult Poseidon,
20:26the god of the sea.
20:28And the naked woman
20:29is Andromeda,
20:30the queen's daughter,
20:31who is being offered
20:32to the monster
20:33in an attempt
20:34to calm Poseidon down.
20:37But no need
20:38to panic
20:38because here comes
20:40the hero Perseus,
20:41armed with a gorgon's head
20:42and anyone who looks
20:43at the head
20:44is immediately
20:45turned to stone.
20:48And this,
20:49as you can see
20:50from the painting,
20:51is precisely the mistake
20:52that the monster
20:53has made.
20:54Andromeda was saved
20:56and the monster,
20:57well,
20:58the monster
20:59was turned to stone,
21:01just like
21:02a fossil.
21:03All of which
21:04raises
21:05an intriguing possibility.
21:07Was the whole story
21:09of the gorgon's head
21:10an attempt
21:11by the Greeks
21:12to explain
21:12what would otherwise
21:13have been
21:13inexplicable wonders,
21:15colossal skeletons
21:17fashioned out of rock?
21:19Certainly,
21:21one thing
21:21is clear.
21:23Giant fossilised monsters,
21:25back in classical times
21:26as now,
21:28made for phenomenal
21:29box office.
21:31In 58 BC,
21:33when a flamboyant showman
21:35by the name
21:35of Marcus Aemilius Scourus
21:37returned home
21:38after a spell
21:39throwing his weight
21:39around in Judea,
21:41he brought
21:41with him
21:42a giant fossil,
21:43which he claimed
21:44to have been
21:44the very monster
21:46turned to stone
21:47by Perseus.
21:49The monster,
21:50we are told,
21:51was over 40 feet long.
21:52The height of its ribs
21:54was greater than that
21:55of an Indian elephant
21:55and its spine
21:57was one and a half feet thick.
21:59Now,
22:00we have no idea
22:01what it was
22:02that Scourus
22:02had actually brought back
22:04with him
22:04the fossil
22:05of some prehistoric beast,
22:06clearly,
22:07a giant whale perhaps,
22:08or even,
22:09it may be,
22:10some composite monster
22:12fashioned out of a whole
22:13assortment of fossilised remains.
22:18But of one thing
22:19we can be absolutely confident.
22:22It wasn't a dinosaur.
22:24All the giant bones found
22:25across the Mediterranean
22:26came from mammals.
22:28Elephants,
22:29rhinoceroses,
22:31samotheriums.
22:33We know this
22:34because the rocks
22:35that contain them
22:36are of relatively recent origin,
22:38say,
22:398 million years old.
22:41To contain the bones
22:42of dinosaurs,
22:43they would have had to be
22:44more than 8 times that age.
22:49But what about dinosaur remains
22:51outside the Mediterranean?
22:53Did the Greeks
22:54know anything about them?
22:56Adrian Meyer
22:57thinks they did.
22:58And for someone like me,
23:00whose childhood craze
23:02for dinosaurs
23:02evolved seamlessly
23:03into an obsession
23:04with the ancient Greeks,
23:06it's a completely
23:07gripping theory.
23:08The Greeks
23:09might have had knowledge
23:10of dinosaur remains
23:12if they travelled
23:13further east
23:14along the Silk Roots
23:17where there are
23:18dinosaur remains,
23:19much farther east
23:20than the Mediterranean world.
23:22Beyond the land
23:23of the Scythians,
23:24a people who inhabited
23:25a vast stretch
23:26of Central Asia,
23:27there arose a steepling
23:29chain of mountains.
23:31So reports Herodotus,
23:33a Greek historian
23:34of the 5th century BC.
23:36And beyond these mountains,
23:38there exist mysterious creatures
23:40called griffins.
23:43Herodotus reported stories
23:46that he heard
23:46from the Scythian nomads.
23:48They told him about griffins,
23:51strange creatures
23:52with beaks,
23:53forelegs,
23:54nests on the ground
23:56for their eggs
23:57that guarded
23:58the gold deposits
23:59that the Scythians
24:00mined and prospected.
24:03These creatures
24:04were fearsome.
24:07They preyed
24:08on horses
24:09and miners.
24:11Looking at the way
24:12Greeks represented griffins,
24:14as in this fine collection
24:16on Samos,
24:16you might think
24:18that these were
24:18fantastical creatures,
24:20the product
24:21of overheated imaginations.
24:23But that was not
24:24the understanding
24:25of the Greeks themselves.
24:27The early travellers
24:29may have been shown
24:29fossils of dinosaurs
24:31to support those stories
24:33of a beaked creature
24:34with forelegs
24:36and burrows,
24:38nests on the ground,
24:39near the gold,
24:40guarding the gold,
24:41actually.
24:43Now,
24:44in the Gobi Desert,
24:45east of the Altai,
24:46mountains,
24:47there stretches
24:48one of the richest
24:49hunting grounds
24:50for dinosaur fossils
24:51anywhere in the world.
24:55In 1922,
24:56when an American adventurer,
24:58a kind of proto-Indiana Jones,
25:00named Roy Chapman Andrews,
25:02made the first
25:03paleontological survey
25:04of the region,
25:05he and his men
25:06were astounded
25:07by what they found.
25:09Fossils,
25:10he reported,
25:11were strewn over the surface
25:12almost as thickly
25:14as stones.
25:15The desert was positively
25:17paved with bones.
25:19Most astounding of all,
25:21there were nests.
25:23Nests filled with eggs.
25:25The very first dinosaur eggs
25:27ever found.
25:33This film
25:34shows the creature
25:35who laid them.
25:37It was a distant ancestor
25:39of one of the most celebrated
25:40dinosaurs ever found
25:41in the Wild West,
25:42the three-horned,
25:44living tank
25:45Triceratops.
25:46And so,
25:47perhaps not surprisingly,
25:48it was named
25:50Protoceratops.
25:51And if it seems to resemble
25:52descriptions given
25:53by Greek writers
25:54of the Griffin,
25:55well,
25:56perhaps it's not
25:57entirely coincidence.
25:59And there's further evidence
26:01for the link
26:01between dinosaur bones
26:03and Griffins.
26:04We're told by Theseus,
26:06a Greek physician
26:07at the court
26:07of the Persian king
26:08in the 5th century BC,
26:11Griffins
26:11are a race
26:12of four-footed birds,
26:14almost as large as wolves
26:15and with legs
26:16and claws
26:17like lions.
26:19The Scythians
26:20described Griffins
26:21as combining
26:22the features
26:23of birds
26:23and mammals.
26:24They were attempting
26:26to describe accurately
26:28the fossils
26:29that they saw,
26:30fossils of dinosaurs,
26:31things that they'd
26:32never seen alive.
26:33And the fossils
26:34of the dinosaurs,
26:35Protoceratops dinosaurs,
26:36combine the features
26:37of mammalian,
26:39four-legged creature,
26:41predator,
26:41with the beak
26:43of a raptor
26:44or an eagle,
26:44a bird of some sort.
26:47If Mayer's
26:48Protoceratops
26:49as bird-like monster
26:50theory is accurate
26:51and it's received
26:52wide support
26:53both from classicists
26:54and from palaeontologists,
26:56then it suggests
26:57something really
26:58rather remarkable.
27:02The mural in the Peabody
27:03is called
27:04The Age of Reptiles.
27:05It shows us dinosaurs
27:07as terrible lizards.
27:08But the ancient nomads
27:10of Mongolia,
27:10it seems,
27:12recognised in Protoceratops
27:13not a reptile
27:14but a kind of bird,
27:16which prefigures
27:17what is pretty much
27:18the consensus
27:19of scientists today.
27:22The notion that birds
27:23are so closely related
27:25to dinosaurs
27:25that they are in fact
27:26a kind of dinosaur themselves
27:28is one that's been
27:29fundamentally shaped
27:31by recent discoveries
27:32in Asia.
27:33So how haunting it is
27:35to see in the fabulously
27:37ancient figure
27:39of the griffin
27:40a possible foreshadowing
27:41of insights
27:42that embody
27:43the absolute
27:43paleontological
27:44cutting edge.
27:48And just maybe,
27:50griffins weren't
27:50the only mythical creatures
27:52to have been inspired
27:53by the discovery
27:54of dinosaur bones.
27:57In China,
27:58the figure of the dragon
27:59was for millennia
28:01an emblem of the emperor
28:02and it remains
28:04to this day
28:05a potent symbol
28:06of Chinese identity
28:07and culture.
28:09The earliest representations
28:11of dragons
28:12reach as far back
28:13as 6,000 BC.
28:17Could it be
28:18that the fossils
28:19of dinosaurs
28:20also gave rise
28:21to this fabulously
28:22enduring creature?
28:24Were dragons
28:25ancient China's
28:26attempt to explain
28:27the mystery
28:28of outsized bones?
28:30The bones of dinosaurs
28:32such as those
28:33that today
28:33are known as
28:34Qingdaosaurus,
28:37Yangtuanosaurus,
28:40or Sinosauroptorix.
28:43The evidence,
28:44as you might expect,
28:45is, to put it mildly,
28:47circumstantial.
28:48All the same,
28:49a fascinating demonstration
28:51of just how potent
28:52the hole can be
28:53of fossils
28:55on the Chinese imagination
28:56came to light
28:57only a few years ago.
29:00In 2006,
29:02in central China,
29:04paleontologists
29:04discovered that
29:05the remains of dinosaurs
29:06were being dug up
29:07and sold as dragon bones.
29:09900 grams
29:10were going
29:11for the equivalent
29:12of 50p.
29:15Villagers told
29:16the paleontologists
29:17that they had been
29:18excavating the seam
29:19of fossils
29:20for a couple of decades.
29:22But the antiquity
29:23of Chinese medical practices
29:25suggests that
29:26the attribution
29:27of dinosaur bones
29:28to dragons
29:29may reach
29:30very much
29:31further back
29:31in time.
29:33Certainly,
29:34what we do know
29:36is that in China,
29:38dragons have been
29:39associated with health
29:40and good fortune
29:41for millennia.
29:44Ancient recipes
29:45employing the fossilised
29:46bones of large
29:47prehistoric mammals,
29:48and probably dinosaurs too,
29:50are included
29:51in the Chinese
29:52Materia Medica,
29:53compendia of centuries-old
29:55traditional medicine.
29:57The size of the bones
29:59that are recorded
29:59in the Materia Medica,
30:02they're clearly
30:03large bones
30:05and not of
30:06ordinary mammals.
30:07And they would have
30:08been given
30:09tremendous significance
30:10in the Materia Medica,
30:12in a culture
30:12which believed
30:13in the reality
30:14of dragons.
30:15These large bones
30:16were clearly
30:17at a premium.
30:19This is one
30:20of the earliest recipes
30:21to mention dragon bones,
30:22first recorded
30:23in the 3rd century B.C.
30:25What you do
30:26is that you grind
30:28the bones to dust
30:29and you mix them
30:31with various herbal medicines.
30:36Then you eviscerate
30:38two swallows
30:39and you pack
30:40the bone,
30:40which is now fine dust,
30:42into small bags
30:43and place them
30:44inside the swallows
30:45and hang them
30:46overnight over a well.
30:49Once you've done that,
30:50they are magically efficacious.
30:53So let's
30:56put our bag
30:57inside
30:58and let it boil.
30:59So it's like a tea bag?
31:01Like a tea bag,
31:02exactly.
31:03So we're expecting
31:03all the essence
31:04of these various herbs
31:05to come out of the bag
31:07into the surroundings.
31:09Chris Duffin,
31:10a historian of geology
31:11and folklore,
31:13made tea for me
31:13following the ancient recipe,
31:15but omitting
31:16the eviscerated swallow.
31:18He didn't recommend
31:19I drink it, though.
31:20One of the herbal ingredients,
31:21not the powdered bone,
31:23turns out to be highly toxic.
31:29When Huang Di,
31:30the first emperor,
31:31died more than 4,000 years ago,
31:33his admirers declared
31:35that he had risen
31:36into the heavens
31:36in the form of a dragon.
31:40An intriguing thought
31:41that long before scientists
31:43gave Tyrannosaurus
31:44his surname of Rex,
31:46the Latin word for king,
31:47royalty in dinosaurs,
31:49might have been paired up
31:50in ancient China.
31:55Nor is it only in China
31:57that big bones
31:58were believed by the ancients
31:59to bring good luck.
32:01The Greeks, too,
32:02when they weren't listening
32:03to travellers' tales
32:04about griffins,
32:05might be busy
32:05harvesting fossils themselves.
32:08In Greece,
32:09giant petrified bones
32:11were seen as talismans
32:12that might bring power,
32:15prestige,
32:16even victory in battle.
32:19The best example
32:20comes from a war
32:22that featured
32:22a Tyrannosaur
32:23among the cities
32:24of ancient Greece,
32:26Sparta.
32:27Now, most Greeks,
32:28relative to the Spartans,
32:30were herbivores,
32:31which isn't to say
32:32they were exactly wusses.
32:33When they marched into battle,
32:34they would make
32:35for a fearsome sight.
32:36They'd have their shields,
32:38which were the equivalent
32:39of the crest
32:40of this Triceratops
32:41and they would use them
32:43to make a phalanx
32:44out of which would
32:45bristle their spears,
32:47the equivalent
32:47of a Triceratops' horns.
32:49When they met
32:50with another city's phalanx,
32:53they would charge one another
32:56and shove
32:58and gouge
32:59and hack
33:00until one side
33:02turned and fled.
33:06But the Spartans
33:07were different.
33:09Unlike the warriors
33:10of other cities,
33:11they were full-time,
33:13professional.
33:14The very earth
33:16would shake
33:16to the rhythm
33:17of their metronomic approach.
33:19As they emerged
33:20through the dust of battle,
33:22they would reveal
33:23a terrifying wall
33:24of scarlet
33:24and bronze.
33:26When they charged,
33:28it wouldn't necessarily
33:29be a full frontal attack.
33:30The Spartans,
33:32unlike other Greeks,
33:34had the training
33:34that enabled them
33:35to launch their wings
33:36in a flanking action.
33:38Their aim?
33:39To attack
33:40the vulnerable sides
33:41of an enemy phalanx
33:43and shred it to pieces.
33:45Their style of battle,
33:46I suppose,
33:47was like that
33:48of a Tyrannosaur.
34:05Not that the Spartans
34:06always won.
34:07When,
34:08in the early 6th century BC,
34:10they sought to conquer
34:11the neighbouring city
34:12of Tegaea,
34:13they suffered
34:14a humiliating defeat.
34:15But just like Tyrannosaurs,
34:17which often seem
34:18to have suffered
34:19quite serious wounds,
34:20and yet invariably
34:21come back for more,
34:23the Spartans rarely
34:24took defeat lying down.
34:27In the wake of this reverse,
34:29they sent a delegation
34:30to Tegaea
34:30under cover of a truce.
34:32News had reached them
34:33of a strange find
34:35in a blacksmith's yard,
34:36the spine of a giant skeleton.
34:39Now, no wonder
34:40the Spartans were excited.
34:42They'd been told,
34:42you see,
34:43by an oracle
34:44that they would only
34:44ever conquer Tegaea
34:45if they could first
34:46capture a skeleton,
34:48the bones
34:49of an ancient prince
34:50called Orestes.
34:53Orestes had the kind
34:54of dysfunctional
34:55family background
34:55that the ancient Greeks
34:57loved in their heroes.
34:58His mum had killed his dad.
35:01He'd killed his mum.
35:03Outsize events.
35:04And so who was to say
35:05that Orestes
35:06had not been outsize as well?
35:08And if he had been
35:09on a physically sensational scale,
35:11indeed a giant,
35:12then what else
35:13could the skeleton
35:14in the blacksmith's yard
35:15be if not the very bones
35:18of the great hero
35:19that the Spartans wanted?
35:21Well, just a bit of a stretch,
35:24you might have thought,
35:25except that,
35:26sure enough,
35:26it turned out
35:27that the Spartans' hunch
35:28had been spot on.
35:30The bones were dug up,
35:32smuggled to Sparta,
35:34shown off,
35:35then reinterred.
35:36Shortly afterwards,
35:38the Tegaeans submitted
35:39to the mastery
35:40of their hated neighbours.
35:41A resounding triumph
35:43for Sparta's
35:44military palaeontological complex.
35:50So, what was the skeleton?
35:53Almost certainly not
35:54the bones of Orestes.
35:57We can't be certain,
35:58but the remains
35:59most likely belonged
36:00to a mastodon,
36:01a large prehistoric
36:02kind of elephant,
36:03the remains of which
36:04were still being dug up
36:05around Tegaea
36:06as late as the 20th century.
36:08All of which makes
36:10for a puzzle.
36:12Why should the Spartans
36:13have presumed
36:14that the bones
36:15belonged to an ancient hero?
36:18The Greeks,
36:20when they contemplated
36:21the Earth's ancient past,
36:23conceived of it
36:24as an age of giants.
36:26Heroes in particular
36:27had been built
36:28on a colossal scale.
36:32Now, it is true
36:34that for all the restlessness
36:35of their curiosity
36:37and the sheer sweep
36:38of their metaphysical speculations,
36:41they had no real understanding
36:42of the vastness of time
36:44that had preceded
36:45the appearance
36:46of humans on Earth.
36:48What they did have, however,
36:49was a sense that humanity
36:51had evolved and changed
36:52over time,
36:53albeit not in a way
36:54that Darwin
36:55would have recognised.
36:57To classical thinkers,
36:58it was a fundamental presumption
36:59that everything
37:00was going to the dogs.
37:02What had once been
37:03a golden age
37:04was now an age of iron.
37:07The human race,
37:08originally a breed of heroes,
37:11had degenerated
37:12and diminished
37:13and ended up
37:14literally dwarvish.
37:19And what had served
37:20to give the Greeks
37:21this particular notion?
37:23Of course,
37:23in a sense,
37:24it's just human nature
37:26to presume that things
37:27were better in the good old days.
37:29But the Greeks
37:30weren't just drawing
37:30on a gut conservatism
37:32for their understanding
37:33of the distant past.
37:35They had evidence for it,
37:37such as the outsized bones
37:38dug up at Tegaea
37:40by the Spartans.
37:43The people of Samos
37:44may have identified
37:45the elephant bones
37:46on their island correctly,
37:47but most Greeks,
37:49confronted by a giant fossil,
37:51would like as not
37:52believe it to be
37:52the remains
37:53of some legendary
37:54giant hero.
37:57Indeed,
37:58so widespread
37:59was this presumption
38:01that the relics
38:02of renowned big hitters
38:03such as Theseus
38:04or Ajax
38:05became must-have accessories
38:07for any temple
38:08keen to make its mark.
38:12Here
38:12is one of those
38:14venerated giant bones,
38:15now recognised
38:16to be part of the femur
38:18of an Ice Age
38:19woolly rhinoceros.
38:20It was dug up
38:21in a temple
38:22at Nicarea
38:22near Sparta.
38:23This is one
38:25of only two
38:26fossilised bones
38:29of this sort
38:30that are known
38:32from Greek sanctuaries.
38:34So this is a really
38:35rare and precious object.
38:37It is indeed.
38:38It's a very rare discovery.
38:41They would have seen it
38:42as a relic,
38:43almost certainly
38:44of a lost hero,
38:46very much like
38:48the way that we see
38:50relics of saints
38:52are displayed
38:54in relicaries
38:55in churches
38:56today.
38:58So it was
38:59that fossil bones
39:00ended up
39:01as tourist attractions
39:02across first the Greek
39:04and then the Roman world.
39:06Even Caesar's
39:07might come to gawp.
39:09The Emperor Hadrian,
39:11we're told,
39:12when a skeleton
39:13with kneecaps
39:14the size of a discus
39:15was exposed
39:16on a beach,
39:17embraced and kissed
39:19the bones
39:19and laid them out.
39:21No wonder then,
39:23confronted by such
39:24seemingly incontrovertible
39:25evidence
39:26for the colossal
39:27stature
39:28of ancient men,
39:29that the Romans
39:30should long have clung
39:31to their belief
39:32in a form of evolution,
39:35survival
39:36of the unfittest.
39:40400 years on
39:41from the birth of Christ
39:42and scholars
39:43still clung to it.
39:45The older the world
39:46becomes,
39:47so the smaller
39:48will be the bodies
39:49of men.
39:51The man who spoke
39:53these words
39:53was Augustine,
39:54a brilliant intellectual
39:56living in what is now
39:57Tunisia,
39:58even as the Roman Empire
39:59was busy imploding
40:01all around him.
40:03Tumultuous
40:03though the times were,
40:04Augustine didn't let them
40:06distract him
40:06from his excitement
40:07at the discovery
40:08of an elephant tooth.
40:09Not, however,
40:10that Augustine thought
40:12that it was
40:13an elephant tooth.
40:14In size,
40:15as he pointed out,
40:16it was as big
40:17as a hundred
40:18human teeth combined.
40:20No wonder then
40:21that he should have
40:21stated confidently,
40:23I believe it belonged
40:24to some giant.
40:27Living as he did
40:28in the 4th century AD,
40:30Augustine's take
40:31on this mysterious relic,
40:33however,
40:33was complex.
40:38He had one foot
40:40in the waning world
40:41of classical culture,
40:42but he was also
40:43a Christian,
40:44a bishop,
40:45a saint.
40:46He knew and loved
40:47his Virgil,
40:48but he lived
40:49to see Rome sacked.
40:51In attempting
40:52to explain
40:52the mysterious
40:53giant's tooth,
40:54he looked backwards
40:56to the traditions
40:57of the Greeks
40:57and the Romans,
40:59but he looked forwards
41:00as well
41:00to those
41:01of the Middle Ages.
41:03As the gods
41:05and heroes
41:05of the classical world
41:06faded before
41:07the triumph
41:08of the church,
41:09so new explanations
41:11for the existence
41:12of huge fossilised bones
41:13took their place.
41:15This time,
41:16they were derived
41:17from the Bible.
41:18Of course,
41:19the scholars
41:20of the Middle Ages,
41:21like the philosophers
41:22and biologists
41:23of ancient Greece,
41:24had no real idea
41:26just how ancient
41:27life on Earth
41:28really was,
41:28but they weren't
41:30wholly lacking
41:31a notion
41:31of a vanished age
41:32that had belonged
41:34to beings larger
41:35and more exotic
41:36than themselves.
41:38These creatures,
41:39like the heroes
41:39of ancient Greece,
41:41were human,
41:42colossally human.
41:45Giants.
41:49But where
41:50had these giants gone?
41:52The answer to that,
41:53so people
41:54in the Middle Ages
41:54believed,
41:55was to be found
41:56in the greatest cataclysm
41:57ever to afflict humanity.
42:00Noah's flood.
42:02Now,
42:03the animals may have
42:04gone in two by two,
42:05but not everyone
42:06got out of the rave.
42:08There were giants
42:09in the earth
42:09in those days.
42:11So we're told
42:12in Genesis,
42:13the first book
42:14of the Bible,
42:14about the world
42:15that preceded Noah's flood.
42:17And sometimes,
42:18in the course
42:18of exploration
42:19or of excavation,
42:21people would find
42:22the bones
42:22of these same giants.
42:25Augustine was one
42:26of the first,
42:27but certainly
42:28not the last,
42:29to explain fossils
42:30in terms of the flood.
42:32In 1342,
42:33for instance,
42:34a cave was discovered
42:35in southern Italy
42:36that contained
42:37the skeleton
42:37of a man
42:38400 feet tall,
42:40or so we're told
42:41by the great medieval writer
42:42Boccaccio.
42:43To display
42:44their discovery
42:45to posterity,
42:47the citizens
42:47of Trapani
42:48strung the bones
42:50on a wire
42:50and carried them
42:51to a church.
42:56Not every wonder
42:57discovered in rock,
42:58however,
42:58was to be explained
42:59as the relic
43:00of a vanished giant.
43:02What,
43:03for instance,
43:03were good Christians
43:04to make
43:05of mysterious footprints
43:06like these?
43:09We now know
43:10that these bird-like tracks
43:12discovered in Oxfordshire
43:13were left by the ancestors
43:15of carnivorous dinosaurs
43:16like Tyrannosaurus,
43:17but it's no wonder
43:19that back in the Middle Ages
43:20when similar prints
43:22were discovered
43:22in locations
43:23ranging from Poland
43:24to the Alps
43:25that some rather
43:26diabolical explanations
43:28should have been provided.
43:31Whence comest thou?
43:33God asks Satan
43:35in the Bible.
43:36Back comes the answer.
43:38From going
43:38to and fro
43:39in the earth
43:40and from walking
43:41up and down in it.
43:44Indeed,
43:45so closely associated
43:46with the devil
43:47were the footprints
43:48of prehistoric creatures
43:49that it was not unknown
43:50for attempts
43:51to be made
43:52to neutralise
43:53their malign power
43:54by incorporating them
43:55into the fabric
43:56of a church
43:57as here at Bebbington
43:58in Cheshire.
44:00But Satanic walkabouts
44:01weren't the only explanation
44:03for dinosaur tracks
44:04that seemed to have grown up
44:05in the Middle Ages.
44:06As in the East,
44:07so in the West.
44:09People told tales
44:10of dragons.
44:12Those of Europe,
44:13however,
44:14unlike those of China,
44:15were malign.
44:17Worthy trophies
44:18for a passing hero.
44:21Indeed,
44:22dinosaur footprints
44:23have been found
44:24beside the Rhine
44:25in the very spot
44:26traditionally associated
44:27with Fafnir,
44:29the gold-guarding dragon
44:30slain by Siegfried
44:32and immortalised
44:33in the opera
44:34by Richard Wagner.
44:36Nice to think
44:37that a dinosaur's plod
44:38through a Jurassic swamp
44:39might have contributed
44:41to the ring cycle.
44:45In fact,
44:46so vividly did dragons
44:47haunt the imaginations
44:49of Germans
44:49in the Middle Ages
44:50that in 1335,
44:52when this huge skull
44:54was dug up
44:54outside the Austrian town
44:56of Klagenfurt,
44:57the locals had no doubt
44:59what it was.
45:00The story goes
45:01that once,
45:02back in the early days
45:03of the town,
45:04a nearby swamp
45:05was the haunt
45:06of a monstrous serpent
45:08until a bold knight,
45:09as bold knights
45:10tended to do
45:11back in those days,
45:12decided to take
45:13the dragon on.
45:15So what the knight did
45:16was he got hold
45:17of a cow,
45:18he stuffed it
45:19full of quicklime
45:19and then he used
45:20the cow as bait.
45:22The dragon came
45:23roaring down,
45:24devoured the cow,
45:26the quicklime ignited,
45:27the dragon exploded
45:29and bang,
45:31Klagenfurt
45:31had been made safe
45:33for civilisation.
45:35Two and a half centuries
45:36on from the discovery
45:37of the mysterious skull
45:38and the legend
45:40had only improved
45:41in the telling.
45:42So much so
45:43that in 1590
45:44the good folk
45:45of Klagenfurt
45:46were inspired
45:47to commission
45:48this.
45:50Once again,
45:51a fossilised bone
45:52inspired a fabulous creation,
45:54this time
45:55in three dimensions,
45:56which I suppose
45:58begs an obvious question.
46:00To what creature
46:01had the skull
46:02dug up in 1335
46:03actually belonged?
46:05The answer
46:06not a dragon
46:08but a woolly rhinoceros
46:10and this forlorn spot
46:12north of the town
46:13was where it had breathed
46:14its last.
46:17There's a sense then
46:18in which the sculpture,
46:20fashioned within the lifetimes
46:22of Galileo
46:23and Francis Bacon,
46:24might seem a last spasm
46:26of medieval superstition.
46:28But that, I think,
46:29would be unfair.
46:30Yes, it looks back
46:33to a time
46:33when people thought
46:34that dragons
46:35and giants
46:36had actually existed.
46:38But it looks ahead
46:39as well
46:40to something
46:41that we can
46:42almost recognise
46:43as modern paleontology.
46:46This,
46:47after all,
46:48is not a monster
46:49conjured up
46:50purely
46:50from the imagination.
46:52It constitutes,
46:55however inadequately,
46:57the oldest surviving reconstruction
46:59of a prehistoric beast.
47:06A century on,
47:08and to scholars touched
47:09by the dawning rays
47:10of the Enlightenment,
47:11talk of dragons
47:13or giants
47:13was becoming
47:14an embarrassment.
47:17In 1683,
47:19when the world's
47:20original university museum,
47:22the Ashmolean,
47:22first opened its doors
47:24in this Oxford building,
47:26a mysterious bone
47:28dug up near the village
47:28of Cornwell
47:29was one of its prize exhibits.
47:33In his book,
47:34The Natural History
47:35of Oxfordshire,
47:36Robert Plott,
47:37the first keeper
47:38of the Ashmolean,
47:40tried to work out
47:40what the bone
47:41had come from.
47:43First,
47:43he speculates
47:44that it was the bone
47:45of an elephant
47:45brought to Britain
47:46by the Romans.
47:47And actually,
47:48how he sort of eliminates
47:50this as an option
47:51is in 1676,
47:53the year before
47:53his book is published,
47:54an elephant is actually
47:56exhibited in Oxford
47:56as part of a travelling
47:57menagerie.
47:58And you can imagine
47:59Plott going up
48:00to the elephant itself
48:02and pulling out
48:03his tape measure
48:04and measuring it
48:05and actually comparing it
48:06to the bone
48:06that he had in hand.
48:08He determines
48:08that they're different.
48:09They're different in shape
48:10and size,
48:10and he eliminates
48:11that as an option.
48:12He very quickly
48:13also eliminates
48:14horse and ox
48:15as viable candidates
48:17and he concludes
48:17in the end,
48:18basically,
48:19with the only other
48:21conclusion that he could draw
48:22was that it was
48:23the bone of a giant.
48:24This is the illustration
48:26in Plott's book
48:26of the mysterious relic.
48:28The original has vanished.
48:31In 1763,
48:32when a scholar named
48:33Richard Brooks
48:34inspected it
48:34and gave it
48:35in the most up-to-date
48:36scientific style
48:37an imposing classical name,
48:39he called it,
48:40what else,
48:42scrotum humanum.
48:44Now, reflected in this name
48:46was the fact that Brooks,
48:47although he knew
48:48he wasn't really dealing
48:49with a pair of
48:50unfeasibly large testicles,
48:52still had no idea
48:53what kind of creature
48:54his scrotum humanum
48:56had actually been.
48:58Like the ancient Greeks,
49:00like the Christians
49:01of the Middle Ages,
49:03Brooks and his contemporaries
49:04had not the faintest notion
49:06just how fabulously ancient
49:07the planet truly was.
49:10But all that
49:11was about to change.
49:13And fossilised bones,
49:15no longer embarrassments,
49:17would be enshrined
49:17as prize exhibits
49:19in a scientific revolution.
49:22In 1788,
49:24a Scottish geologist
49:26named James Hutton
49:27published an almost
49:28literally epical book
49:29in which he proposed
49:31that the Earth
49:31was infinitely more ancient
49:33than humanity.
49:34Indeed, Hutton could find
49:36no evidence
49:37for there having been
49:38a creation at all.
49:39The result,
49:40he declared,
49:42of our present inquiry
49:43is that we find
49:45no vestige of a beginning,
49:47no prospect of an end.
49:51The implications of this theory
49:53for the study of ancient beasts
49:54were not long in being felt.
49:57Yeah.
49:59I feel my sight of humanum.
50:07between 1815
50:08and the early 1820s,
50:10a whole series of fossils
50:11were uncovered by men
50:12quarrying for slate
50:13down mineshafts like this
50:15at Stonesfield,
50:17north of Oxford.
50:23So this narrow,
50:26cramped passageway
50:27is where slate was mined
50:29for the roofs
50:30of Oxford colleges
50:31and Cotswold cottages
50:33and it's where
50:34in the course
50:35of that mining
50:36the teeth,
50:38the bones
50:39of a mysterious
50:40and monstrous
50:41beast were found.
50:43And the significance
50:44of these finds
50:46is precisely
50:47that they were made
50:48down here
50:49underground
50:50because it meant
50:51that the origins
50:54of these bones
50:55could be very precisely
50:57identified
50:58to a particular layer
51:01in the sequence
51:02of rocks.
51:04Whatever the creature
51:06was that these fossils
51:07had come from,
51:08one thing was
51:09absolutely clear,
51:11it was old.
51:12It was very,
51:14very old.
51:16The bones
51:17belonged to the same
51:18mysterious creature
51:19that Richard Brooks
51:20had named
51:20Scrotum humanum.
51:22But now
51:23there was to be
51:24no talk of
51:25giant's testicles.
51:27This was because
51:28the fragments
51:29ended up in the hands
51:31of the man
51:31perhaps best qualified
51:33in the whole of Britain
51:34to identify them,
51:35a clergyman
51:36named William Buckland
51:38who also just happened
51:39to be Oxford's
51:41Professor of Geology.
51:42What Buckland deduced
51:44was that the fossilised
51:46bones had belonged
51:47to a very carnivorous
51:48and very large
51:50lizard,
51:51a Megalosaurus.
51:54By 1822
51:55the name had appeared
51:57for the first time
51:58in print.
51:58The animal
51:59identified by Buckland
52:01must in some instances
52:03have attained
52:04a length of 40 feet
52:05and stood
52:068 feet high.
52:08The notion
52:09that such a monster
52:10might once have
52:10wandered over Oxfordshire
52:12was of course
52:13a thrilling one.
52:18With the remains
52:19of other
52:20similar giant lizards
52:21simultaneously being found
52:23elsewhere across
52:23southern England
52:24it opened up
52:25to the eyes of the public
52:27a quite staggering prospect.
52:30once it seemed
52:32in the chillingly
52:33unfathomable reaches
52:35of a pre-human past
52:36there had existed
52:37an entire world
52:39of savage reptiles
52:40red in tooth
52:41and claw.
52:43Time
52:44cruel time
52:46come and subdue
52:48that brow.
52:50Quite how
52:51the existence
52:52millions upon millions
52:54of years ago
52:55of ravening
52:56megalosaurs
52:56was to be squared
52:58with the biblical
52:58chronology
52:59that had man
53:00being fashioned
53:01by a loving God
53:02on the sixth day
53:03of creation
53:04was for theologians
53:06a most unexpected
53:07and alarming poser.
53:10Buckland
53:11was merely
53:12the first
53:12of many clergymen
53:13to wrestle
53:14with the implications.
53:16Certainly
53:16the discovery
53:18of so many fossils
53:19opened a vista
53:20of monsters
53:21to the wide eyes
53:22of the Victorian public
53:23that compared
53:24with anything
53:25in the Bible
53:25or Greek mythology.
53:30Dragons
53:30of the prime
53:31as the great
53:32poet Tennyson
53:33put it
53:33that tear each
53:35other in the slime.
53:37Except of course
53:39that dragons
53:40was precisely
53:41what they were not.
53:43The scientist
53:43who came up
53:44with a name
53:45for them
53:45was this man
53:46Richard Owen.
53:49When he wasn't
53:50busy founding
53:50the Natural History
53:51Museum in London
53:52and being quite
53:52sensationally rude
53:54to all his colleagues
53:55Owen had a day job
53:57as Britain's
53:57leading anatomist.
54:00Megalosaurus
54:01and creatures like it
54:02he announced
54:03had ranked
54:04not merely
54:05as lizards
54:05but as terrible lizards
54:07in Greek
54:08dinosaurs.
54:11The name reflected
54:13the two sides
54:13of Owen's
54:14complex personality
54:15the brilliant anatomist
54:17who had correctly
54:18extrapolated
54:19from a few
54:20scattered bones
54:21an entire kingdom
54:22of vanished creatures
54:23and the devout
54:25Anglican
54:25awestruck
54:27before the revelation
54:28of just how
54:29stupefying
54:30God's creations
54:31had always been.
54:33Nor was Owen
54:34alone
54:35in his wonder.
54:37Within a decade
54:38of his first use
54:39of the word
54:39dinosaurs
54:40had become
54:41a veritable craze.
54:43In 1854
54:45Owen himself
54:46and an associate
54:47the sculptor
54:48Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins
54:50blazed what
54:51would prove
54:51a popular trail.
54:53They opened
54:53a dinosaur theme park
54:55and here it still stands
54:57Crystal Palace
54:59in South London.
55:13When Hawkins
55:15explained his motives
55:16for sculpting
55:17this Mesozoic
55:18wonderland he did
55:19he did so in words
55:20that not only
55:21foreshadow Jurassic Park
55:22but also echo
55:24the myth-making
55:25of our ancestors.
55:26His aim
55:27he declared was
55:29the revivifying
55:30of the ancient world
55:31to call up
55:32from the abyss of time
55:33and from the depths
55:34of the earth
55:35those vast forms
55:36and gigantic beasts
55:37which the almighty
55:39creator designed
55:40to inhabit
55:40and precede us
55:41in possession
55:42of this part of the earth
55:44called Great Britain.
55:47No wonder then
55:48that he and Owen
55:49wanted to include
55:50this particular beauty.
55:53So what we have here
55:55is none other
55:57than Megalosaurus
55:58itself
55:59except that
56:01as paleontologists
56:02have long appreciated
56:03it actually looked
56:04nothing like this.
56:06Megalosaurus
56:07was not built
56:08like a people carrier.
56:10In point of fact
56:11it was a theropod
56:13a two-legged
56:14proto-tyrannosaur
56:15which means
56:17that it looked like
56:18this.
56:20And that's why
56:21when I was a child
56:22I made a point
56:23of refusing
56:24every offer
56:25from my parents
56:25to take me
56:26to Crystal Palace.
56:27These reconstructions
56:29offended every bone
56:31in my dino-geek body.
56:34But
56:37now that I'm here
56:39I can realise
56:41what a little
56:42prig I was being.
56:45This model
56:46built of concrete
56:47may not be
56:48cutting-edge
56:49paleontology
56:50but it tells you
56:51everything
56:52about why
56:53dinosaurs
56:53still fascinate us
56:54about the sense
56:56of awe
56:57and smallness
56:57we feel
56:58when we contemplate
56:59the immensity
57:00of geological time
57:01and about how
57:03extraordinary it is
57:04considering the millions
57:05upon millions
57:06of years
57:06that separate us
57:07from the Mesozoic
57:08that we know
57:08anything about
57:09dinosaurs at all.
57:11The achievements
57:12of paleontology
57:13ever since the
57:14heroic pioneering
57:15days of Buckland
57:16and Owen
57:17have certainly
57:18been astounding
57:19and recent finds
57:21especially in China
57:22have opened up
57:23new worlds
57:24of wonder
57:25and fascination.
57:27But there is
57:28a sense perhaps
57:30in which we
57:31are not
57:31after all
57:32so wholly far
57:33removed
57:33from those
57:34who soar
57:34in fossils
57:35the remains
57:36of thunderbirds
57:37or griffins
57:38or dragons
57:39or giants.
57:41Our understanding
57:43of dinosaurs
57:43today
57:44is defined
57:45for us
57:45by the discoveries
57:47of scientists
57:49and yet
57:50the nature
57:51of the fossil record
57:52being what it is
57:53those same scientists
57:55will never be able
57:56to fill in
57:57all the gaps.
57:59and so it is
58:00into those same gaps
58:01that we
58:02just as our ancestors
58:04did
58:04project all our
58:05manifold obsessions
58:06as variable
58:08and contradictory
58:09as human society
58:10itself.
58:12It turns out
58:13that the science fiction
58:14stories were right
58:15all along
58:16just when you think
58:17you've got dinosaurs
58:18pinned down
58:18they always break free.
58:33and so on
58:36and so on
58:50the sea
58:50and so on
58:50it's
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