Re: Horned diggers/Lakota legend

[Adrienne Mayor <afmayor@aol.com>]

On Mar 23, 2007, at 5:25 AM, Steve White wrote:

Having just seen Ice Age 2, Dann's comments on horned diggers  
reminded me of Epigaulus and Ceratogaulus - the horned gophers.  
Weren't they discovered with spiral burrows (devil's corkscrews)?


The burrowing horned gophers of the Pliocene (Epigualus hatcheri) are  
different from the Miocene burrowing beaver (Palaeocastor), which  
created the spiral structures that the early paleontologists at Agate  
Springs Fossil Beds named Devil's Corkscrews (Daemohelix).

The "forests" of Devil's Corkscrews, ranging from southern South  
Dakota and Northern Nebraska to Lusk, Wyoming, perplexed the  
scientists, who initially thought they were the trace fossils of the  
giant roots of some unknown tree.

Meanwhile, long before the paleo teams began digging the abundant  
fossils at Agate Springs, the Lakota named the dense bone deposits at  
Carnegie Hill "Animal Bones Brutally Scattered About." And the Lakota  
had already accurately identified the spiral formations as the  
burrows of long extinct beavers, noting that they were different from  
living beavers who made lodges in water. The ancient Lakota name for  
Devil's Corkscrew was "Beaver's Lodge."