Re: place names and fossils

[Adrienne Mayor <afmayor@aol.com>]

On Mar 30, 2007, at 7:24 PM, bcdanz@sbcglobal.net wrote:

Here is a link to a page about a fascinating Native American Legend  
about the giant beaver, Castoroides ohioensis in the Connecticut  
River Valley:
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/nalegend.html

The legend could pertain to either prehistoric peoples' direct  
contact with the giant beaver or fossils of it ( "...and his carcass  
turned to stone.")


Bruce is right--The interesting tales on this website suggest  
"ancestral memories" in oral traditions dating back to the Ice Age  
when humans coexisted with giant beavers the size of black bears.  
These legends are important because they show a  pre-scientific  
attempt to explain the extinction of the giant beaver.

Technically these legends from New England are "geomyths," relating  
the disappearance of the giant beavers to their being transformed  
into distinctive geological landforms. The Dene People of the  
Northwest Territories have tales about their culture hero Yamoria  
destroying the Giant Beaver.

By definition, a a"fossil legend" specifically relates the fossilized  
remains or traces to traditions about remarkable creatures no longer  
seen alive, like Giant Beavers. Such tales are significant because  
they show a pre-scientific grasp of the concepts of extinction as  
well as a relationship between living species and species only known  
from fossil evidence. Examples: the Micmacs of Nova Scotia told of  
finding beavers' teeth as long as their hands, and other Canadian  
tribes collected giant beaver teeth to use as tools to hollow out log  
canoes. C. Richard Harington told me that his field assistant, a  
Vuntut Gwitchin trapper from the Yukon, immediately recognized the  
fossil limb bone of Castoroides as a gigantic beaver.