Dragons' teeth and thunderstones : the quest for the meaning of fossils /
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| Author / Creator: | McNamara, Ken, author. |
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| Imprint: | London, UK Reaktion Books Ltd, 2020. ©2020 |
| Description: | 1 online resource (287 pages) : illustrations. |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | |
| Format: | E-Resource Book |
| URL for this record: | http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12416874 |
| Summary: | For at least half a million years, people have been doing some very strange things with fossils. Long before a few seventeenth-century minds started to decipher their true, organic nature, fossils had been eaten, dropped in goblets of wine, buried with the dead, and adorned bodies. What triggered such curious behavior was the belief that some fossils could cure illness, protect against being poisoned, ease the passage into the afterlife, ward off evil spirits, and even kill those who were just plain annoying. But above all, to our early prehistoric ancestors, fossils were the very stuff of artistic inspiration. Drawing on archaeology, mythology, and folklore, Ken McNamara takes us on a journey through prehistory with these curious stones, and he explores humankind's unending quest for the meaning of fossils. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (287 pages) : illustrations. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781789142891 178914289X 9781789142907 1789142903 |
