Fossil Legends of the First AmericansThe burnt-red badlands of Montana's Hell Creek are a vast graveyard of the Cretaceous dinosaurs that lived 68 million years ago. Those hills were, much later, also home to the Sioux, the Crows, and the Blackfeet, the first people to encounter the dinosaur fossils exposed by the elements. What did Native Americans make of these stone skeletons, and how did they explain the teeth and claws of gargantuan animals no one had seen alive? Did they speculate about their deaths? Did they collect fossils? |
Contents
Marsh Monsters of Big Bone Lick | 1 |
The Northeast Giants Great Bears and Grandfather of the Buffalo | 32 |
New Spain Bones of Fear and Birds of Terror | 73 |
The Southwest Fossil Fetishes and Monster Slayers | 106 |
The Prairies Fossil Medicine and Spirit Animals | 168 |
The High Plains Thunder Birds Water Monsters and BuffaloCalling Stones | 220 |
Common Ground | 255 |
Fossil Frauds and Specious Legends | 332 |
Notes | 347 |
407 | |
429 | |