Hey Eons viewers! Producer Seth here. Monstrum is one of my favorite channels so it was a thrill to be able to collaborate with them on this episode. Make sure you check out their new video on cyclops and tell them Eons sent you! th-cam.com/video/s-pMfIWl4kI/w-d-xo.html
I remember how I went to the beach as a small kid, maybe 8 years old, and searched for funny looking stones. I was also a huge dinosaur fan and I always dreamt of finding the remains of a creature that lived millions of years ago. And sometimes, I actually found little stones that didn't quite look like stones. I still have them, one of them looks like a layer of skin with scales, or the imprints of scales. I'm still not sure what exactly caused the weird structure, but when I found it, I felt like I had just discovered a miracle. The excitement hasn't faded away. I recently started going to university, and I'm studying archeology. I love it.
Ancient Egypt was the home of the Amphiptere, a type of dragon that was a giant serpent with wings. It looks a lot like the whale fossils found in near Faiyum, which are actually pretty serpentine-looking. The front fins could have been seen as wings, and the head a does look a little bit like that of a giant snake.
Australian Aboriginals have a myth about the 'Bunyip', a creature that dwells in billabongs, and devours unsuspecting swimmers... Is probably a 60k year old tale about the Mega fauna creature of similar habits.
@@drsharkboy6568 It's called Basilosaurus (king lizard) because the first guy to reconstruct it put parts from two skeletons together and declared it to be a real sea serpent. Unfortunately, due to the rules of nomenclature, we're stuck with the inaccurate name even though other scientists were immediately calling the guy out on his fakery.
Imagine being your average everyday Wooly Rhino, doing Wooly Rhino things, completely unaware of the fact that one day people will immortalize your remains as that of a Dragon, the most legendary of all creatures.
There are actual instances of Ancient Greeks discovering ancient fossils, who mistook them for bones of creatures/demigods/heroes, and so reburied them with some measure of ceremony. I forget where I read this, but it was mentioned alongside the ancients' interpretations of a massive fossil hotspot in Samos, Greece, as a battleground between Amazons and heroes of some kind.
Except sailors would know what whales where as they breach often out of the water, plus the early whaling that has been going on ever since large boats that could carry many people went out to sea. Bones found on land where always thought to be just that: Land living animals. People didn't know that water covered most of the land we see today. Most sea monsters where just misidentified from actual sea creatures. Bones found where never thought to be sea creatures, people couldn't fathom that very shallow seas would cover most of today's land masses.
Someone else said that whale bones could be the inspiration for monstrous serpents like the Wadjet or Wurms/Wyrms. Just because sailors know what a whale looks like doesn’t mean they know what their skeletons look like.
Fun fact: In China, what we call dinosaurs are called _kong long_ , which translates to *terrifying dragon* So while dragons might be inspired by dinosaur remains, to the Chinese dinosaur remains are certainly inspired by their ancient stories about dragons.
If you think about it, dinosaurs ARE dragons. They just had horns in different places, some were really long, others had huge claws, and even others were feathered and could fly. Who knows, there may have been some that were really keen with sensing moisture in the air and knew when rain might come; "summon the rain," if you will. Not to mention that China is home to several different "Dinosaur Valley" provinces, so yeah, it really is the Land of the Dragons.
Aren’t Eastern Dragons almost more akin to minor Gods in their role in Chinese and Japanese mythology than they are akin to, say, monsters like the Hydra? Like, Japan seems to like to slap the name Dragon on everything somehow and make it work
@SPINKZOR Queen Elizabeth I of England actually purchased and owned a narwhal horn from a group of Norwegian merchants for £60,000 (roughly the value of an entire castle/manor in the exchange rate of that era) believing it to be a Unicorn horn. It was one of her crown treasures IIRC.
I came back exhausted from one of my last days at this job, realized I'd already set up a cup of tea, and saw an Eons episode. It's the small things, guys.
Make some of your own by looking at fossils, and then draw the fossils but with weird stuff combined and then put flesh and skin on dat boi and BOOM a mythological beast
The Griffith myth’s beak and protoceratops’ beak looks exactly alike. If the nomads were trying to keep others away from possible gold producing areas, they’d tell everyone about the bones of terrible creatures around there and let the tales circulate.
A few years ago, maybe 1989, I was visiting new york city. I was walking on 6th avenue, which was congested with pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. The crowd parted, and being young I darted for the opening thinking to get ahead a bit. I am 6'5" and was starkly skinny then. The crowd had parted for a beggar. He had a metal teapot for his cup and he shook it at me. He had one extra large eye, centered on his face, and a small vestigial one crowded out to it's right. His nose was like a stack of leaves, too many folds like his sinuses were exposed. He was taller than me. Maybe 6'8 or 6'10. I've never doubted where myths about cyclops, giants, ettins and other monsters come from. They are us.
There is no evidence of any adult person with an eye on the forehead, even the one that born like that, they eventually die for the other health conditions, it is extremelly unlikelly that cyclops were really inspired in humans, I'm sure people at the time just invented it, just like almost everything in mythology
None of this has been proved. They're just speculations based on what we think ancient people believed. Some may have been based initially on fossils. But which if any of them were, we have no idea.
Omg I live in China in the Sichuan province, I visited the place where the dinosaurs used to nest. There are tons of fossils in that place and the excavation site is huge! So cool
I would like to thank the patreons and everyone involved with this channel. I love this channel. I love biology and history and stories. This channel combines all of the that and more.
I always thought monster myths probably came from fossils! I also think the global “flood myth” probably came, at least in part, from finding fish fossils on the tops of mountains.
That was definitely the case with the ancient Greeks, who speculated that such fossils were evidence of several worldwide floods. They couldn't have been the only ones to come to that conclusion.
Eons is literally my favorite channel on all of the TH-cam. I just have one complaint. "Prehistoric" is only applicable to human history. In terms of paleontology, it's about as meaningful as "pre-WWII"
"Prehistory" can refer to deep history (anything since the beginning of the universe). The term "human prehistory" can be used to disambiguate it from the period where humans existed on Earth.
I would say that the term is being used literally and colloquially. Literally, there are no first hand accounts either written or oral. And colloquially as denoting prior to what we loosely call the age of "humans". Also, it infers that this is an interpretation of evidence. I agree that the term is imprecise, like Asian to describe Russian, Chinese, Korean, East Indian (South Asian), Malaysians, etc. as anything but living on the same continent. But very precise terms are usually only relevant to experts and very dedicated amateurs; not for a general audience.
I remember reading about this in “Dinomania” (2018) by Boria Sax Classic religious art was essential in the development of early paleoart and by extension paleontology
Next thing they'll claim 'How to train your Dragon' and 'Dragon riders of Berk' weren't based on real Viking history. It's enough to make Little Jackie Paper roll in his grave.
I mean it would make so much sence that most mystical creatures were inspired by fossils at least this means they were real but not in the way ancient civilizations thought.
I was eating while watching this and nearly choked at 0:06 when they mentioned Klagenfurt. I'm from Ferlach which is about 10 km south of Klagenfurt but I never heard of this skull discovery and that it is the origin of the Lindwurm which is displayed at 0:36. Thanks for this cool knowledge
If i remember correctly around yangtze river, there was a record of people finding fossil of long vertebrae , which might inspire the story of dragon. And in india around the area presumed to be the place of epic war Mahabharata, there was a history of people finding large bone fossils. So it's very possible.
We'll never really know for sure and it might be a chicken or egg situation. Were fossils inspirations for dragons or were fossils used to support the belief in dragons?
Fossilised ammonites found in the himalaya region are thought to be the weapon of an Indian god called Vishnu. He is always shown with a sharp wheel spinning on his finger and people didn't know that the Himalayas were not always a mountain range. Most Indian Temples I know own an ammonite fossil called Shaligrahmas and put it in their prayer room with the idol.
Great video! Maybe some other monster stories came from the time of different human species making contact and eliminating each other. Today we’re the only humans species left. Some encounters must have made their way into our myths and legends, right?
Māori mythology contains stories of the pouakai, an enormous eagle which is said to have carried off and killed people, and it's possible that this is based off of the extinct Haast's eagle which used to inhabit New Zealand's South Island.
I loved hearing about ancient people keeping fossils. I want to hear about the Dino shaped sculptures found in South America and if the people who made them kept any fossils
This is wonderful, I've always suspected fossils to link so many myths around the globe to dragons. It makes sense, especially because of the creatures that left fossils behind in places such as Eastern Asia and the Americas. Thunderbirds in Native American culture have always reminded me of avian megafauna and pterosaurs, while Quetzucoatl shares qualities with Chinese Dragons such as the snake like form- and titanoboa fossils were found in Columbia while Gigantophis fossils were found in Egypt (and could also explain the myths of giant snake creatures there!)
Not too long ago, a newspaper reported that some scientists have captured footage of a very large eel in Loch Ness and concluded that the Loch Ness monster might have been just some overgrown eels. Maybe you guys could do a video on the evolution of eels or what kind of prehistoric monsters once roamed Scotland.
Something that most people never seem to realize about Chinese dragons is that the basis of their body design and mythology has a living analog: the Chinese Alligator (NOT the Komodo Dragon). Not only do they share a similar base body plan but the deep association with water, not fire, and the ability to become invisible to all but the enlightened matches the lifestyle of an alligator perfectly.
THANK YOU for this video, sincerely. I'm working on my graduation thesis which is about the History of Paleontology and I really needed these sources for my first chapters. I will be citing you on my thanks page 🙇♀️
Cyclopia is a real life incredibly rare medical condition, in which a fetus' mouth and nose doesn't full form with the two eyes fusing into one. Most usually die shortly after birth due to suffocation. It's very rare but also very sad as it incompatible for humans and animals with cyclopia to survive.
The Natodomeri lion had a basal length of at least 380mm and this minimum estimate provides us with a figure of 460mm as its greatest skull length making it at, least in skull size, as large if not larger than the panther atrox or fossilis.
Prinzessin Pummelfee Genau das, nur ein bissi kleiner. Ich weiß daß der Klagenfurter ein Lindwurm ist, aber ich finde er sieht so lieb aus daß 'Tatzelwurm' sich einfach anbietet 😉
Czech-Ourselves • The Tatzelwurm is somewhat smaller than the Lindwurm (which is the name of the 'dragon' of Klagenfurt); however, I prefer to call it a Tatzelwurm because it looks effing adorable: check out the image at en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatzelwurm
Great episode! Great topic! I remember having had discussions about weather dragons were dinosaurs mistaken for dragons with friends and in school as a kid. It was great to see it covered. well done =)
I'm a little surprised that there was no mention of the present day Oarfish with respect to some Chinese dragons! These fish wash up on shore and are not immediately recognizable as a fish, their ornamentation and color is very similar to the dragons used in Chinese New Year parades, for example, and the mention in this episode of dragons living in the sea makes this connection seem even stronger. An image at this link: images.app.goo.gl/h72ojSdfjcPQcok19
The word dinosaur is a relatively new word. I suggest that the word “dragon” (and many other mythological creatures) are what we called them before the creation of this word. We just never took the old word out of circulation.
Human children born or still born with birth defects or mutations can explain a lot of myths. There are babies with one eye in the center of their head like a cyclops. There are babies with legs and feet fused together like a mermaid. The are babies with fur all over their bodies like Big Foot or Sasquatch. There are babies with scales, which could be interpreted as a human hybrid with snakes, fish, dragons, etc.
It is believed, that the true etymological breakdown is: ku + klops (pku + klops) = cow + thief The folk-etymology "round eye" is believed to come from a misreading of the morphemes in the word: kykl + ops (kuklos + ops) = circle + eye And this is thought, because the word "peku" was lost over time in Greek. So the speakers could not remember the original meaning.
A year or two ago, I saw a documentary about the greek gods that mentioned the size of some of the gods, about 35 get tall, could have been deduced from dinosaur bones. Fortunately, there are a few Greek temples that still have some "bones of the gods", and documentary said they were dinosaur bones. Fossil dinosaur bones are a good explanation for European dragons as well.
I could just see Jordan Peterson presenting this information to BBC's Cathy Newman Peterson: "But the cranium didn't come from a fire breathing reptile. It came from a rhino, a woolly rhino to be precise Newman: "So, what your are saying is that woolly rhinos breathed fire".
I think in light of your previous video, the obvious one we're missing out on here is the folklore of the puckish little people from Flores and surrounding islands.
That is so interesting and explains a lot actually. Few years ago, here in Egypt, an ancient tomb was discovered. The tomb contained fossilized bones for Jurassic animals. And the carvings on the tomb mentioned that these are the bones of god Seth
In ancient Near Eastern religions, a griffon-like supernatural creature was often engraved inside temples and sanctuaries, portrayed as guardians. In the Old Testament they are referred to as "cherubim" (not the cute chubby babies with wings, but more like winged sphinxes). They appear in Genesis guarding the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, and later are displayed on top of the Ark of the Covenant- which incidentally, was a box coated with solid gold.
Som speculate werewolves were based on early serial killers and vampire myths on the misunderstanding of human decomposition. When people found corpses that hadn’t decomposed as much a sense they’d expect it was assumed they were vampires.
Nicholas Lewis Iirc, Vampires were also originally associated with Wolves and not bats. Really, you could have a whole series just dedicated to the convoluted origins of stories of the Undead: Vampires, Ghosts, Zombies, Revenants (aka, local man literally too angry to die), and so on
I do education work at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and I theorize (with my young students!) that the preponderance of mythological bulls and bull creatures stems from interactions with the Aurochs, since its range neatly coincides with major bull traditions like Rome, Babylon, Greece, Egypt, etc., and it was HUGE! It is just a theory, but I use it to get the students thinking about the reality that inspired ancient mythologies more generally. (the similarity in bull representations across these various cultures suggests modeling from life, rather than from paleontology)
I've noticed that many older depictions of wyverns are feathered and very raptor-like, with clawed wings resembling how raptor wings are often reconstructed today. I have a theory that at least some of those were inspired by the discovery of exceptionally well-preserved raptor fossils.
The 4 fixed signs of the Zodiac are Leo, Taurus, Aquarius and Scorpio. In ancient times Scorpio was known as the Eagle. So Lion, Bull, Human and Eagle. When you come across mythical creatures with aspects of these signs they refer to the Four Fixed signs and the zodiac. The Griffin; Leo and Eagle The Egyptian Apis bull had to have a image of an eagle on it's back, a tail like a lion (and possibly the sign for human on it's forehead) The Sphinx: Lion and human, often with eagle wings. Or look at the four creatures in Ezekiel 1:10 "As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle." The Babylonian Lamassu: A winged bull/lion with a human head. etc. etc. The Griffin belongs to these. Dragons and other mythical creatures could of course very well originate from found fossils.
Has there every been a mass burial where there have been multiple different animals mixed together and scientists completely mixed it up and made a “mutant” dinosaur?
Hey Eons viewers! Producer Seth here. Monstrum is one of my favorite channels so it was a thrill to be able to collaborate with them on this episode. Make sure you check out their new video on cyclops and tell them Eons sent you! th-cam.com/video/s-pMfIWl4kI/w-d-xo.html
Ahhh, i was wonder if today is the day of cyclops :)
PBS Eons happy Halloween!
Thank you Seth! Working with the Eons team was a blast.
11:35 peace was never an option
Yaaaaas omg I was so excited for these episodes between you guys! Mind blown!🤯
If I have a gold mine and can't guard it 24/7 I'd make up stories about monsters in them too.
Ingenious
Daisy Dee lol just posted something similar. Plus the beaks look the same.
I'd talk about how big my PP was.
@@aidantheraider6324, and then Science had to go and ruin it for everyone by disproving these stories.
@@luckychips2283 What am I supposed to use for protecting my gold and treasures now?
Why were dragons in so many cultures??
Eons: Fossils?
History Channel: Dragons were real?
"Much like how early humans wiped out most of the Eurasian megafauna, this conclusively proves Sasquatch hunted the chupacabra to extinction!"
VSauce: Instinct?
Dragons were real
Wasn't there a fake documentary like that?
Or ancient aliens...
Japan's water dragons being more likely to act in anger makes sense given the prevalence of typhoons and tsunamis.
I remember how I went to the beach as a small kid, maybe 8 years old, and searched for funny looking stones. I was also a huge dinosaur fan and I always dreamt of finding the remains of a creature that lived millions of years ago. And sometimes, I actually found little stones that didn't quite look like stones. I still have them, one of them looks like a layer of skin with scales, or the imprints of scales. I'm still not sure what exactly caused the weird structure, but when I found it, I felt like I had just discovered a miracle.
The excitement hasn't faded away. I recently started going to university, and I'm studying archeology. I love it.
@J G thanks, yes I really enjoy it, although I'm still at the start. And I just noticed that we both have the same username 😃
@J G :o
Nice you've chosen unemployment
Well dinosaurs are paleontology, archeology is the study of remains of past human material culture.
Soooooo........
Dr. Grant?
Ancient Egypt was the home of the Amphiptere, a type of dragon that was a giant serpent with wings. It looks a lot like the whale fossils found in near Faiyum, which are actually pretty serpentine-looking. The front fins could have been seen as wings, and the head a does look a little bit like that of a giant snake.
Basilosaurus was effectively a snake-whale, and were it still here, folks would’ve mistaken it for a sea serpent.
Dinosaurs are more related to birds than lizards. Dragons fly. The ancients were on to something lol
Egypt? As far as I can see, Amphiptere is a European myth, not Egyptian. Maybe you were thinking of Wadjet, the winged snake goddess.
Australian Aboriginals have a myth about the 'Bunyip', a creature that dwells in billabongs, and devours unsuspecting swimmers... Is probably a 60k year old tale about the Mega fauna creature of similar habits.
@@drsharkboy6568 It's called Basilosaurus (king lizard) because the first guy to reconstruct it put parts from two skeletons together and declared it to be a real sea serpent. Unfortunately, due to the rules of nomenclature, we're stuck with the inaccurate name even though other scientists were immediately calling the guy out on his fakery.
Imagine being your average everyday Wooly Rhino, doing Wooly Rhino things, completely unaware of the fact that one day people will immortalize your remains as that of a Dragon, the most legendary of all creatures.
That’s how I want to go out tbh
Oh yes. The Wooly Albino Rhino Gyno who also happens to be a wine addict.
@@fernandohgfg6847 Bojack Horseman reference....nice 1 ;-;
then imagine your ancestors in the Ice Age seeing these animals every day and not thinking much about it, it was just their everyday life
There are actual instances of Ancient Greeks discovering ancient fossils, who mistook them for bones of creatures/demigods/heroes, and so reburied them with some measure of ceremony. I forget where I read this, but it was mentioned alongside the ancients' interpretations of a massive fossil hotspot in Samos, Greece, as a battleground between Amazons and heroes of some kind.
Whales' skulls might be the inspiration behind those sea monsters with tusks that appear sometimes in older maps of the world.
Oh absolutely, the lower jawbones look like tusks to someone who wouldn't know any better.
Except sailors would know what whales where as they breach often out of the water, plus the early whaling that has been going on ever since large boats that could carry many people went out to sea. Bones found on land where always thought to be just that: Land living animals. People didn't know that water covered most of the land we see today.
Most sea monsters where just misidentified from actual sea creatures. Bones found where never thought to be sea creatures, people couldn't fathom that very shallow seas would cover most of today's land masses.
Someone else said that whale bones could be the inspiration for monstrous serpents like the Wadjet or Wurms/Wyrms. Just because sailors know what a whale looks like doesn’t mean they know what their skeletons look like.
Oar fish, dragon sharks, and other deep ocean fish.
Uh, NARWHALES, duh!
Fun fact: In China, what we call dinosaurs are called _kong long_ , which translates to *terrifying dragon*
So while dragons might be inspired by dinosaur remains, to the Chinese dinosaur remains are certainly inspired by their ancient stories about dragons.
If you think about it, dinosaurs ARE dragons. They just had horns in different places, some were really long, others had huge claws, and even others were feathered and could fly. Who knows, there may have been some that were really keen with sensing moisture in the air and knew when rain might come; "summon the rain," if you will.
Not to mention that China is home to several different "Dinosaur Valley" provinces, so yeah, it really is the Land of the Dragons.
Tyrannosaurus Rex means "tyrant lizard king" kind of parallels that. Makes sense that other cultures would have similar names or meanings.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Don’t chinese people think they’re dragons too
Aren’t Eastern Dragons almost more akin to minor Gods in their role in Chinese and Japanese mythology than they are akin to, say, monsters like the Hydra? Like, Japan seems to like to slap the name Dragon on everything somehow and make it work
@@SherriLyle80s not to mention dinosaur means terrible lizard in latin which is arguably even closer.
"my queen, i have slain the fire-breathing dragon. look at the hardened burnt skull. pay me"
@Hernando Malinche more likely monitor lizards, with forked tongues in artwork becoming flames as copies got more elaborate.
@Hernando Malinche monitor lizards actually CAN be scary too, even the smaller species
@SPINKZOR Queen Elizabeth I of England actually purchased and owned a narwhal horn from a group of Norwegian merchants for £60,000 (roughly the value of an entire castle/manor in the exchange rate of that era) believing it to be a Unicorn horn. It was one of her crown treasures IIRC.
Oh that is sad that Queen Elizabeth I got taken.
"hardened" the basilisk did it!
""...spent all their time tending sheep." Shows picture of goats. 9:20
Mythical sheep that just happened to look exactly like goats. It's like you never even read The Odyssey in original Greek. ;)
@@patrickmccurry1563 It's all Greek to me.
Lol
@@patrickmccurry1563 ohu
Lmao!
Everyone knows dragon myths were inspired by King Ghidorah coming down from space.
rakat sceptic indeed, old bean
Godzilla: How many times are we going to tell you this listen old man!
Ah, I see you are a fellow man of culture!
Exactly. This channel is as bad as the History channel.
Hahahaha
Here in Brazil theres a legend about a creature called Mapinguari. Some say its appereance was based by giant sloth fossils
That would explain now dragons in Chinese myths have feathers/fur, since fossils in China are often very well preserved and show integument
Dinosaurs had feathers
Wendy Gold Yeah
The Velociraptor could have been mistaken for the Basilisk.
@@Solitude2500 no wtf, the velociraptor is like the size of a turkey
Maybe not the velociraptor but the feathered dinousaurs in the region.
I came back exhausted from one of my last days at this job, realized I'd already set up a cup of tea, and saw an Eons episode.
It's the small things, guys.
Manatee Man tea and Eons is my favorite combination ❤️
NOT like my PP. My PP is real big.
@@MrAlwaysRight this is small pp comment
Hope your new Job is going well.
@@cookiepowerx9251 no it’s true I am their pp
5:44 The world's most depressed looking _Protoceratops_ .
BIG MOOD
@Leandro Aude As if he was HOPING extinction was coming lol
@International Harvester Eeyorosaurus.
It not a phase mom *ITS AN ERA*
Well, he's hornless and sheep-sized, of course it's depressed.
What fantastic beasts! If only someone could tell me where to find them...
**rimshot**
@@Roguefem76 Archer ?
@@stavristavrev6795 Sorry, what?
Make some of your own by looking at fossils, and then draw the fossils but with weird stuff combined and then put flesh and skin on dat boi and BOOM a mythological beast
Just dig and dig and dig
I love the crossover on this episode. Well done ladies and your teams.
The Griffith myth’s beak and protoceratops’ beak looks exactly alike. If the nomads were trying to keep others away from possible gold producing areas, they’d tell everyone about the bones of terrible creatures around there and let the tales circulate.
A few years ago, maybe 1989, I was visiting new york city. I was walking on 6th avenue, which was congested with pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. The crowd parted, and being young I darted for the opening thinking to get ahead a bit. I am 6'5" and was starkly skinny then. The crowd had parted for a beggar. He had a metal teapot for his cup and he shook it at me. He had one extra large eye, centered on his face, and a small vestigial one crowded out to it's right. His nose was like a stack of leaves, too many folds like his sinuses were exposed. He was taller than me. Maybe 6'8 or 6'10. I've never doubted where myths about cyclops, giants, ettins and other monsters come from. They are us.
😅🤦♂️ I just read "1898" and was like: wait what?
a few years ago *almost 30 years ago*
Andrew Hendy ok zoomer
Man lay of the drugs
For a second I thought you were talking about Percy Jackson
As a folklorist, I would love more videos like these! Thank you PBS Eons. I love this channel.
When you're a deformed (human) being but people consider you as a mythical being.
Deformed being: "I see this as an absolute win."
@Manophire. com I think you mean "markiplier prostate and the projectile uterus"
Or maybe marsupial and placental.
There are some examples of congenital deformity that also can be insipiration for legends, like cyclopia or sirenomelia
@Manophire. com I think you mean Marsupial and Placental?
Yeah, the problem is, people with these deformities generally die after a few hours.
There is no evidence of any adult person with an eye on the forehead, even the one that born like that, they eventually die for the other health conditions, it is extremelly unlikelly that cyclops were really inspired in humans, I'm sure people at the time just invented it, just like almost everything in mythology
The first dragon I’ve seen was when I woke up in a wagon to “hey you there, you’re finally awake”
I never knew how many monsters were thought of because of fossils.
The Demon Amon horns are literally amonites.
Yeah like pretty sure a unicorn is based off a type of rhino and then kinda slowly brought to be more elegant through time and people telling stories
keep fighting. i want to see who's smartest
None of this has been proved. They're just speculations based on what we think ancient people believed. Some may have been based initially on fossils. But which if any of them were, we have no idea.
preying mantis miniature = Alien from the movie Aliens 😐.
Omg I live in China in the Sichuan province, I visited the place where the dinosaurs used to nest. There are tons of fossils in that place and the excavation site is huge! So cool
I would like to thank the patreons and everyone involved with this channel. I love this channel. I love biology and history and stories. This channel combines all of the that and more.
I always thought monster myths probably came from fossils! I also think the global “flood myth” probably came, at least in part, from finding fish fossils on the tops of mountains.
That was definitely the case with the ancient Greeks, who speculated that such fossils were evidence of several worldwide floods. They couldn't have been the only ones to come to that conclusion.
Eons is literally my favorite channel on all of the TH-cam. I just have one complaint. "Prehistoric" is only applicable to human history. In terms of paleontology, it's about as meaningful as "pre-WWII"
@@emmettbattle5728 There are other words that can be used. There's no point simplifying something to explain it if you get it wrong.
"Prehistory" can refer to deep history (anything since the beginning of the universe). The term "human prehistory" can be used to disambiguate it from the period where humans existed on Earth.
Pffft. "Prehistoric" simply means "before recorded history" which means that EVERYTHING further back than about 10,000 years ago is prehistoric.
I would say that the term is being used literally and colloquially. Literally, there are no first hand accounts either written or oral. And colloquially as denoting prior to what we loosely call the age of "humans". Also, it infers that this is an interpretation of evidence.
I agree that the term is imprecise, like Asian to describe Russian, Chinese, Korean, East Indian (South Asian), Malaysians, etc. as anything but living on the same continent. But very precise terms are usually only relevant to experts and very dedicated amateurs; not for a general audience.
I remember reading about this in “Dinomania” (2018) by Boria Sax
Classic religious art was essential in the development of early paleoart and by extension paleontology
to insert a trey the explainer meme here:
it's either a basking owl or a barn shark-- damn it
They mostly come at Eons...mostly.
Next thing they'll claim 'How to train your Dragon' and 'Dragon riders of Berk' weren't based on real Viking history. It's enough to make Little Jackie Paper roll in his grave.
So, you probably don't want to talk about Skyrim either?
R.I.P. Little Jackie Paper, he didn't live forever.
Yay! Science AND monsters! They're my favorite!
I mean it would make so much sence that most mystical creatures were inspired by fossils at least this means they were real but not in the way ancient civilizations thought.
For anyone who loves to explore the cultural and historical aspects of monsters in mythology and folklore; Monsturm is the channel for you my dudes
9:58 Hilarious how the cyclops throwing the boulder at Odysseus' ship has a bloody right eye. His left eye appears to be fine.
LMAOO
but he only has one eye
@@currently_In_stealth_behind_u Well he had two but then one got injured and bled away
Oh, I heard that "dragon tales" reference. Well played PBS EONS, well played.
"Planet Earth has seen MUCH stranger creatures in it's 4.5 billion year history"
Yeah, the Drepanosaurs.
I was eating while watching this and nearly choked at 0:06 when they mentioned Klagenfurt. I'm from Ferlach which is about 10 km south of Klagenfurt but I never heard of this skull discovery and that it is the origin of the Lindwurm which is displayed at 0:36. Thanks for this cool knowledge
If i remember correctly around yangtze river, there was a record of people finding fossil of long vertebrae , which might inspire the story of dragon.
And in india around the area presumed to be the place of epic war Mahabharata, there was a history of people finding large bone fossils.
So it's very possible.
11:27 Ah, imagine if humans had domesticated the small elephants and today we had tea cup elephants instead of dogs
This is one of my favorite videos of yours! I love mythology and it's absolutely thrilling to see it intersect with science.
This is a great idea to combine Eons and Monstrum together for an episode!
I've always thought dragons were inspired by fossils
We'll never really know for sure and it might be a chicken or egg situation. Were fossils inspirations for dragons or were fossils used to support the belief in dragons?
We have a video about European dragons if you want to get some more info. about what inspired them.
Well congratulations you must be smarter than all of us normies huh?
Imagine finding a Dino skull back Then. What a trip
Ross from Friends there is a theory that the cyclops the Greeks talked about were likely mammoth or elephant skulls. Look up pictures, you’ll see why.
Great Video!!
As an austrian, I appreciate the mention of the "Lindwurm" in Klagenfurt, Austria!!!
Me too. 🇦🇹
Austria boys party 🇦🇹
Fossilised ammonites found in the himalaya region are thought to be the weapon of an Indian god called Vishnu. He is always shown with a sharp wheel spinning on his finger and people didn't know that the Himalayas were not always a mountain range. Most Indian Temples I know own an ammonite fossil called Shaligrahmas and put it in their prayer room with the idol.
Great video! Maybe some other monster stories came from the time of different human species making contact and eliminating each other. Today we’re the only humans species left. Some encounters must have made their way into our myths and legends, right?
Māori mythology contains stories of the pouakai, an enormous eagle which is said to have carried off and killed people, and it's possible that this is based off of the extinct Haast's eagle which used to inhabit New Zealand's South Island.
Love Monstrum!! Would recommend the channel to everyone
I do too I just hate that the videos are so short. Id watch a 20 min break down
@@chelsey8737 right?!!!
All these PBS guys are great
You're the best! Thank you.
I loved hearing about ancient people keeping fossils. I want to hear about the Dino shaped sculptures found in South America and if the people who made them kept any fossils
This is wonderful, I've always suspected fossils to link so many myths around the globe to dragons. It makes sense, especially because of the creatures that left fossils behind in places such as Eastern Asia and the Americas. Thunderbirds in Native American culture have always reminded me of avian megafauna and pterosaurs, while Quetzucoatl shares qualities with Chinese Dragons such as the snake like form- and titanoboa fossils were found in Columbia while Gigantophis fossils were found in Egypt (and could also explain the myths of giant snake creatures there!)
"Ancient theorists suggests...."
Keep up the great work pbs eons.
I am so pleased this channel exists
this is very well made all around! thank you very much for your working and dedication to educating the public.
Not too long ago, a newspaper reported that some scientists have captured footage of a very large eel in Loch Ness and concluded that the Loch Ness monster might have been just some overgrown eels. Maybe you guys could do a video on the evolution of eels or what kind of prehistoric monsters once roamed Scotland.
6:55 my face when I accidentally touch the toilet water when wiping
Hahaha now that is probably one of the best comments I've seen in a while
How do you wipe that your hand comes remotely close to the toilet bowl
Something that most people never seem to realize about Chinese dragons is that the basis of their body design and mythology has a living analog: the Chinese Alligator (NOT the Komodo Dragon). Not only do they share a similar base body plan but the deep association with water, not fire, and the ability to become invisible to all but the enlightened matches the lifestyle of an alligator perfectly.
THANK YOU for this video, sincerely. I'm working on my graduation thesis which is about the History of Paleontology and I really needed these sources for my first chapters. I will be citing you on my thanks page 🙇♀️
Cyclopia is a real life incredibly rare medical condition, in which a fetus' mouth and nose doesn't full form with the two eyes fusing into one. Most usually die shortly after birth due to suffocation. It's very rare but also very sad as it incompatible for humans and animals with cyclopia to survive.
I have a video suggestion
Could you talk about the huge variation in lions in the pleistocene and maybe include the Natodomeri lion.
It was a giant lion found in Kenyan rocks around 200,000 years ago
The various forms of panthera leo definitely need more discussion
The Natodomeri lion had a basal length of at least 380mm and this minimum estimate provides us with a figure of 460mm as its greatest skull length making it at, least in skull size, as large if not larger than the panther atrox or fossilis.
Hey
Fascinating
Imagine Alice hanging out with a mock turtle and a protoceratops lol
Austria represent!
I always felt like there's something mammalian about that Tatzelwurm...
Was ist denn ein Tatzelwurm? Ist das sowas wie ein Lindwurm?
Prinzessin Pummelfee Genau das, nur ein bissi kleiner. Ich weiß daß der Klagenfurter ein Lindwurm ist, aber ich finde er sieht so lieb aus daß 'Tatzelwurm' sich einfach anbietet 😉
Czech-Ourselves • The Tatzelwurm is somewhat smaller than the Lindwurm (which is the name of the 'dragon' of Klagenfurt); however, I prefer to call it a Tatzelwurm because it looks effing adorable: check out the image at en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatzelwurm
Great episode! Great topic! I remember having had discussions about weather dragons were dinosaurs mistaken for dragons with friends and in school as a kid. It was great to see it covered. well done =)
Yess this collab is amazing ! Love both channels, I hope to see more 💖
Great jobs!
Me: reads Percy Jackson
Also me: Ah yes, this definitely makes sense.
If you guys released a Podcast oh gosh I'll never leave my room
I am Austrian and my mother grow up near Klagenfurt. So i seen this statue multiple times. It really raised my mood seeing it in one of your videos
I kumm a aus Kärnten, also sig i den a öfters, von wo kummst denn?
@@bosertheropode5443 Niederösterreich, zwischen Wien und Retz, aber meine Mutter kommt aus Kühnsdorf beim Klopeiner See
You guys are so good at pronouncing Chinese names this is INCREDIBLE
I'm a little surprised that there was no mention of the present day Oarfish with respect to some Chinese dragons! These fish wash up on shore and are not immediately recognizable as a fish, their ornamentation and color is very similar to the dragons used in Chinese New Year parades, for example, and the mention in this episode of dragons living in the sea makes this connection seem even stronger. An image at this link:
images.app.goo.gl/h72ojSdfjcPQcok19
The word dinosaur is a relatively new word. I suggest that the word “dragon” (and many other mythological creatures) are what we called them before the creation of this word. We just never took the old word out of circulation.
Circulation? Circulation of blood is what makes my PP real big.
@@MrAlwaysRight did not see that coming-
Human children born or still born with birth defects or mutations can explain a lot of myths. There are babies with one eye in the center of their head like a cyclops. There are babies with legs and feet fused together like a mermaid. The are babies with fur all over their bodies like Big Foot or Sasquatch. There are babies with scales, which could be interpreted as a human hybrid with snakes, fish, dragons, etc.
I thought the scientists for this channel would know the difference between a clan shell and a scallop shell.
Oh bloody hell! “Clam” shell! Clam.
9:00 "One-eyed cyclopes" huh? Doesnt the word cyclopes imply one eye? :P
no. the plural of cyclops is cyclopes, with an e lol
Well, "cyclops" translates to "round eye" and not "one eye" as might be believed. So the number of eyes is not given.
It is believed, that the true etymological breakdown is:
ku + klops (pku + klops) = cow + thief
The folk-etymology "round eye" is believed to come from a misreading of the morphemes in the word:
kykl + ops (kuklos + ops) = circle + eye
And this is thought, because the word "peku" was lost over time in Greek. So the speakers could not remember the original meaning.
I needed this for my history class..THANK YOU
What did you have to do for history class?
A year or two ago, I saw a documentary about the greek gods that mentioned the size of some of the gods, about 35 get tall, could have been deduced from dinosaur bones. Fortunately, there are a few Greek temples that still have some "bones of the gods", and documentary said they were dinosaur bones.
Fossil dinosaur bones are a good explanation for European dragons as well.
Dragons: Who are you?
Dinosaurs: I’m you but real.
Who else thinks dinosaurs inspired dragons?
Me, lol, lol, lol, lolol, yolo.
乔评论者 Your not alone. But *YOLO*
Denis Tyrant Dragons are dinosaurs but dinosaurs aren’t dragons.
Basically, I do.
Shiny Shoes Dinosaurs did inspired dragons but I get your point.
I could just see Jordan Peterson presenting this information to BBC's Cathy Newman
Peterson: "But the cranium didn't come from a fire breathing reptile. It came from a rhino, a woolly rhino to be precise
Newman: "So, what your are saying is that woolly rhinos breathed fire".
yes
I think in light of your previous video, the obvious one we're missing out on here is the folklore of the puckish little people from Flores and surrounding islands.
FYI: Cyclopia is the extremely rare disease where a human can be born with one eye in the centre.
This is such an amazing topic!
The dwarf elephant of Cyprus... I've seen the actual fossil skeleton in a friend's house here in Cyprus, it was amazing!
That is so interesting and explains a lot actually. Few years ago, here in Egypt, an ancient tomb was discovered. The tomb contained fossilized bones for Jurassic animals. And the carvings on the tomb mentioned that these are the bones of god Seth
In ancient Near Eastern religions, a griffon-like supernatural creature was often engraved inside temples and sanctuaries, portrayed as guardians. In the Old Testament they are referred to as "cherubim" (not the cute chubby babies with wings, but more like winged sphinxes). They appear in Genesis guarding the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, and later are displayed on top of the Ark of the Covenant- which incidentally, was a box coated with solid gold.
8:07 *a pine apple*
-shows pinecone
Ok but that giant goose at 11:23
What if no large bones of any animal were ever discovered. Would we still have myths of monsters? I`d say not likely.
Som speculate werewolves were based on early serial killers and vampire myths on the misunderstanding of human decomposition. When people found corpses that hadn’t decomposed as much a sense they’d expect it was assumed they were vampires.
Nicholas Lewis
Iirc, Vampires were also originally associated with Wolves and not bats. Really, you could have a whole series just dedicated to the convoluted origins of stories of the Undead: Vampires, Ghosts, Zombies, Revenants (aka, local man literally too angry to die), and so on
I do education work at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and I theorize (with my young students!) that the preponderance of mythological bulls and bull creatures stems from interactions with the Aurochs, since its range neatly coincides with major bull traditions like Rome, Babylon, Greece, Egypt, etc., and it was HUGE! It is just a theory, but I use it to get the students thinking about the reality that inspired ancient mythologies more generally. (the similarity in bull representations across these various cultures suggests modeling from life, rather than from paleontology)
I'd love multiple Episodes on this Topic since the insights so far been amazing.
@Manophire. com Maybe they are worried that youtube will have problems with it.
Superb video, as usual. Thanks!
Dr Zarka.
Awesome super villain name.
i loved this, mythology and paleontology combined!!
Native American cultures must have also found fossils. I'd love a show on how they were influenced by them!
I've noticed that many older depictions of wyverns are feathered and very raptor-like, with clawed wings resembling how raptor wings are often reconstructed today. I have a theory that at least some of those were inspired by the discovery of exceptionally well-preserved raptor fossils.
Eons: Uploads video about monsters inspired by fossils with cyclops in thumbnail.
Monstrum: Uploads cyclops video literally seconds later.
Hmmmm
....because they are doing a collaboration....? As said in the video...?
???
@@Beryllahawk I commented this before watching. The Monstrum note popped up as I was tapping the Eons note.
The 4 fixed signs of the Zodiac are Leo, Taurus, Aquarius and Scorpio. In ancient times Scorpio was known as the Eagle.
So Lion, Bull, Human and Eagle.
When you come across mythical creatures with aspects of these signs they refer to the Four Fixed signs and the zodiac.
The Griffin; Leo and Eagle
The Egyptian Apis bull had to have a image of an eagle on it's back, a tail like a lion (and possibly the sign for human on it's forehead)
The Sphinx: Lion and human, often with eagle wings.
Or look at the four creatures in Ezekiel 1:10 "As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle."
The Babylonian Lamassu: A winged bull/lion with a human head.
etc. etc.
The Griffin belongs to these.
Dragons and other mythical creatures could of course very well originate from found fossils.
I know this has already been requested a lot (also by me) but can you please make a video about the Australian megafauna
"There's nothing to be afraid of. It's just science.....". Y'all got a twisted sense of humor.
I do look forward to each new video. Thank you
11:42 butchered that one; the plural is "cyclopes"
crimson90 2:53 veritable bothered me and I just don’t know why
Has there every been a mass burial where there have been multiple different animals mixed together and scientists completely mixed it up and made a “mutant” dinosaur?