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hello everyone and welcome to this
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series of videos on the history of
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paleontology and I thought we would
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start the series of videos with Tales of
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fossils and folklore this is largely
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looking at how humans and fossils have
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interacted both in historical time and
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before that point with fossils within a
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non-scientific
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framework it's also um very northern
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European in its focus and that largely
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reflects what I could find in the
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literature I think it's an obvious point
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to make that as long as humans have been
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around and had culture they have
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probably reacted or interacted I should
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say sorry with fossils or that are found
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wherever they are living however when it
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came to reading about this to construct
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this lecture I very much found a focus I
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think because of um History of Science
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narratives on the situation the picture
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in northern Europe so it's with that
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apology that I continue and I wanted to
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make you all aware of this so the key
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question that we can start with is how
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did humans and fossils interact before
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we had this scientific framework well we
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know that human interactions with
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fossils run deep trilobites for example
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as shown on the left hand side here were
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collected and drill fuses uh pendants so
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um hanging around for example the neck
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um by early European humans in the late
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Paleolithic Age so that's somewhere
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between 50,000 and 10,000 thousand years
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ago these were definitely within that
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context these were decorative
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items we know also that shells or teeth
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of extinct animals are sometimes found
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as Grave Goods in Bronze Age human
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burial sites so that's a tiny bit more
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recent uh an example of this is shown in
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a very much idealized Victorian
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reconstruction of a tumulus that's a
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grave on the right hand side here um
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which is from the um Northeast of the UK
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so it's obvious from these interactions
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that we knew we know that fossils um as
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well as being uh rocks were also viewed
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as symbolic um structures and they were
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of cultural significance to early humans
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another really intriguing and
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surprisingly persistent relationship
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between humans and fossils is the use of
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paleontological artifacts as
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medicines examples of this um stretch
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recorded history and they include um
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echinoid spines which is shown on the
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far left hand side of this slide here
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which were known as lepides Judi and
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were used um either in a powdered form
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or they were sucked whole and taken to
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treat kidney conditions including
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bladder stones I guess that's not really
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condition because it is a bladder
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condition but nevertheless for those
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kind of ailments people use these
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structures as a form of
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medicine fossilized fish teeth um
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usually from the Jurassic period so
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that's about 200 to 146 million years
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ago uh used to be called toad Stones as
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represented in this wonderful wood cut
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here there's an example of some of these
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on an actual fish in this Photograph
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here so these structures were called
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toad stones and they were used to treat
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many diseases um in recorded history and
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they were also used as an antivenom so
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that's really interesting Amber has been
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used to counter ailments including
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gonera mental illness vertigo and the
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plague um for quite a long time so this
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wonderful picture image here are
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instruments that are used for distilling
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Amber um and indeed on the right hand
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side here I've shown you some historical
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reconstructions of are links because for
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a very long time it's thought that Amber
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which we now know is fossilized tree
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resin um was actually um solidified
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linkx urine so that's lots of surprising
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I think ways that humans have interacted
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with fossils that in in kind of a
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pattern that has continued all of the
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way up to the 18th century so humans
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have viewed pedological artifacts as
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potential medicines until really
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surprisingly
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recently and throughout recorded history
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and obviously before that point we think
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that humans have used folkl La as a
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mechanism as a way of explaining fossils
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some famous examples of these include St
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Hilda this is a statue of St Hilda on
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the left hand side here and this is a
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Christian Saint associated with the town
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of witby in the north of the UK she her
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one of her big Miracles is that she is
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thought to have turned lots and lots of
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snakes um into stone as such ammonites
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were frequently interpreted to be
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uh coiled snakes so when these were
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found in the Rocks around witby people
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call them snake stones and the only
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problem with this explanation was that
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typically these structures these
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ammonites as we now know these are
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fossils of a um a group of mollusks
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called the
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seapods but back then we didn't know
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that and these were called snake stones
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and they didn't have heads and so what
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the local Crafts People tended to do is
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car a head onto the fossil to fit in
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with that folklore based explanation of
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how these structures in the rock may
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have
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formed so the the full story of that is
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that St Hilda turns snakes into stone
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and Whitby in order to clear the ground
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for a new Convent
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okay other explanations that have held
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Sway in the UK are that um the Jurassic
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oyster gr Briar shown uh in in side
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lateral view here um this is
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particularly abundant in the old M Stone
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quaries around scunthorp in the UK and
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this was known in folklore as the
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devil's toenail on account of the
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supposed similarity in shape to the
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imagined talon-like toenail of the
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mythical
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devil uh some other examples are known
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from slightly further a fi so for
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example on the island of Malta the
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ambulacral areas of fossil ainm you can
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see an example of a fossil ainm here on
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the right and these um structur
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these five um rows of dots that you can
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see here here here here and here these
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um were explained as the five toed
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Footprints of the devil so this handsome
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chap or chapes here and that was used as
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an explanation for what these structures
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may be these were not Ain ofms these
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were the footprints of the devil these
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are just examples and there are any
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number of such examples in local
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cultures globally these were just a few
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of the ones that I've chosen to um to
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describe in this particular lecture so
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for much of human history we can say
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that okay when it came to explaining
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what fossils were we did so within a
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folklore based uh framework and we used
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folklore Tales to explain the structures
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that we found in
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rocks and so that's the end of my
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examples of kind of humans and
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interactions with fossils outside of
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science there's probably a whole lot
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more stuff that is out there that you
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can read about in this area and I'm sure
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many people have done phds on this topic
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it's really interesting and I'm sorry
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that I have to move on at that point but
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before I do so after this we're moving
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into historical territory we're moving
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into the kind of the area where we start
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having historical records of how humans
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and fossils
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interacted and this brings up the
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question of how we should tell history
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right I'm not by training a historian of
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science um and indeed if I were I would
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probably give a very different lecture
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to the one or series of videos I should
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say to the one that I'm about to give
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you now but I just wanted to highlight
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that this is the case that we have this
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idea that's called wig history uh wig
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wigis is kind of the phrase that people
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often use to describe a particular way
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of telling history that scientists like
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me are are particularly prone to so wig
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history is this um way of telling
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history that's named after the wigs this
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was for a long time the UK's uh second
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political party um these were this group
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of people this political party they were
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Advocates of the power of parliament for
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example that's one of the things they
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care about and they were quite a strong
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force in the move towards the abolition
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of of the slave trade so that's some of
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what they were like um as politicians
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but they also had this habit um of kind
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of skewing History um to the way they
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wanted it to be told so wig historians
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evolved a way of writing about British
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history that situated the wigs members
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of their party part of of this party in
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the position of the good guys in British
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history whenever they possibly could do
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and it's in uh those terms that it's
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worth considering the story that I'm
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about to tell you in the rest of the
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videos um that you'll see below this
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point on the website in the history of
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science H wigis is a consideration it's
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the idea that the only important
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developments are those which led us to
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where we are now and it's a view in
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which we look at the history of science
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only from the Viewpoint of what we now
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know now so it's kind of a very goal
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directed and very herob based uh
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Narrative of where we got to today it
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tends to ignore all of the blind alleys
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that we took to try and explain science
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like some of the ones including folklore
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that I've told you just now in the rest
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of these videos I'm going to be ignoring
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those and that's actually not how we
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should tell
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history if you want to learn more about
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the biases that this may be introducing
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and indeed um the the consideration
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about um how we tell history this paper
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that I've put on the slide here um is a
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really good place to start this carttoon
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is actually a really good example of
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what the the wigs um did and how they
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viewed their position in history from
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back when they were still an active
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party so I kind of um wanted to put that
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in as an apology that because this
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lecture is limited in scope I can't
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spend um this website and these videos
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talking to you for hours about the The
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History of Science in order to make it
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serve the function that I want it to do
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um it will be a little wigg is and I
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apologize for that there is lots of cool
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stuff outside the history I'm about to
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tell you that occurred and is equally
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deserving of being included but because
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I had to choose some things and not
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others to include be aware that there
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there is that bias there so with that I
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will see you in video number two uh
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probably very shortly
