Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without...

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Living with Dinosaurs John Michael Fischer www.newgeology.us Scientists tell us that there were over 63 million years between the extinction of dinosaurs and the first traces of humanity, so it is surprising to find depictions of live dinosaurs made by people in a variety of times and places throughout the past. Beginning with the Bible, it is easy to picture the animal in Job 40:15-24 which says "Look at Behemoth… which feeds on grass… what strength it has… what power in the muscles of its belly! Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are close-knit. Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron." It could be a hippopotamus, elephant, or rhinoceros, except for the tail - like a Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani). Cedrus libani

Transcript of Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without...

Page 1: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

Living with Dinosaurs

John Michael Fischer

www.newgeology.us

Scientists tell us that there were over 63 million years between the extinction of

dinosaurs and the first traces of humanity, so it is surprising to find depictions of live

dinosaurs made by people in a variety of times and places throughout the past.

Beginning with the Bible, it is easy to picture the animal in Job 40:15-24 which says

"Look at Behemoth… which feeds on grass… what strength it has… what power in the

muscles of its belly! Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are close-knit.

Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron." It could be a hippopotamus,

elephant, or rhinoceros, except for the tail - like a Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani).

Cedrus libani

Page 2: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

We find animals like Behemoth engraved on this cylinder seal from Mesopotamia

around 3500 BC,

this vessel from the Ming Dynasty, China (1368 - 1644 AD),

a cave painting in the jungle of northern Peru made around 4000 BC (among

thousands found by Peruvian archaeologist Quirino Olivera in Utcubamba province),

Page 3: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

an engraving of Anasazi origin (Navajo for "ancient enemy”) on a sandstone wall in the

Utah desert, probably from before 1300 AD,

and a brass carving on Bishop Bell’s tomb in Carlisle Cathedral, England, 1496 AD.

The spiked tail on the left sauropod dinosaur is like the tail of a Shunosaurus.

Page 4: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

The first dinosaur fossils were discovered in 1819 by William Buckland, but it wasn’t

until 1841 that British Anatomist Richard Owen coined the term “dinosaur”. Complete

skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their

imaginations to depict the fossil animals as lumbering lizards.

Megalosaurus bucklandii reconstructed then and now

Hylaeosaurus reconstructed then and now

Before they were called dinosaurs, cultures around the world called them something

like our word “dragon”.

Page 5: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

This dinosaur skull was found in 2004 in South Dakota and called Dracorex Hogwartsia

because it reminded the paleontologists of dragons from the Harry Potter books, which

were inspired by ancient European stories.

Those stories are echoed in the famous statue on Dragon bridge in Ljubljana,

Slovenia, made 104 years before the Dracorex skull was discovered.

Page 6: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

This tapestry in the Chateau de Blois is from around 1500 AD. The adult and baby

dinosaurs shown here were called salamanders at the time.

Marco Polo wrote a detailed account of his travels in a book published in 1298 AD. It

says that in the province of Carajan in southern China are seen huge serpents, 30 feet

long and 8 feet wide. Near the head they have two short legs, having three claws like

those of a tiger, and large, glaring eyes. The jaws are wide enough to swallow a man,

the teeth are large and sharp, and their whole appearance is so formidable that neither

man nor any kind of animal can approach them without terror. There are others of a

smaller size, being 24, 18, or 15 feet long. In the daytime, to avoid the heat, they lurk

in caves, and at night they go out to seek food. Whatever beast they can lay hold of,

whether tiger, wolf, or any other, they devour; after which they go to a river or lake to

drink.

The description fits an Allosaurus. He could not have been writing about alligators or

crocodiles, which have 5 fingers on their front legs and do not hunt tigers or wolves.

Page 7: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

Here is a carving of a stegosaurus on the wall of Ta Prohm temple in Angkor Wat

Cambodia, built in 1186 AD.

Page 8: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

This is an Aztec shield with an image similar to the feathered dinosaur Dakotaraptor,

shown here in artistic fashion. Dakotaraptor was discovered in 2005 in South Dakota.

The Aztec empire reigned in what is now Mexico from 1345 to 1521 A.D.

Ica stones are engraved stones found in ancient burial sites near Ica, Peru.

Thousands are on display in a museum there. Pictures of all kinds display animals,

fish, people, medical procedures, comets, and so on. They became famous in the

1960’s because some of them show living dinosaurs, even dinosaurs and men

together. Some fakes have been made, but they are recognizable under close

examination. Notice the unusual concentric circles.

Page 9: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

Only recently were similar circular “rosettes” found on real dinosaur skin.

Triceratops skin

From: Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, 2007

Page 10: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

The figurine on the left, resembling a baby Triceratops (right), is from the Hongshan

culture in northeastern China, sometime between 3000 and 4500 BC.

Here is a figurine made during the Chinese Shang Dynasty, 1050 to 1600 BC.

Page 11: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

This dragon head is a Roman army standard from the 3rd century BC.

Dinosaur designs are also found on cloth from Nazca, Peru, dated to 700 AD.

and this jar by a Moche potter in northern Peru from sometime between 0 and 800 AD.

Page 12: Living with Dinosaurs - newgeology.us with Dinosaurs.pdf · skeletons are rarely found. Without complete skeletons, researchers used their imaginations to depict the fossil animals

Associating people with dinosaurs has become more reasonable since the discovery of

soft, flexible tissue in demineralized dinosaur bone,

(Schweitzer, Mary H. et al. 01 May 2009. Biomolecular Characterization and Protein Sequences of

the Campanian Hadrosaur B. canadensis. Science, Vol. 324, No. 5927, pp. 626-631

DOI:10.1126/science.1165069)

and dinosaur DNA fragments that should be too old to exist. Testing on cartilage cells

of Hypacrosaurus, “not only supports that the compound within these cells is

chemically consistent with DNA, but that material is double stranded, and of a

minimum length of 6 base pairs." Bailleul et al., Evidence of proteins, chromosomes and

chemical markers of DNA in exceptionally preserved dinosaur cartilage. National Science Review,

January 2020 DOI:10.1093/nsr/nwz206

Together, they reinforce Carbon-14 dates of 22,000 to 39,000 years ago obtained from

dinosaur bones mainly in the United States but also Eurasia by three independent

groups:

The International Paleontology Group (IPG) had 16 bone samples from 10

dinosaurs tested at Carbon-14 laboratories, and 14 of the reports can be

downloaded at http://www.newgeology.us/presentation48.html

Two researchers reported Carbon-14 dates for 4 dinosaurs in a 2015 article.

https://media2.kgov.com/files/CRSQ-2015-thomas-nelson-14c-in-dino-fossils.pdf

A similar result (24,600 years BP) was obtained for a Mosasaur in 2011.

Lindgren J, Uvdal P, Engdahl A, Lee A H, Alwmark C, Bergquist K E, Nilsson E, Ekström P,

Rasmussen M, Douglas D A, Polcyn M J, Jacobs L L (2011). Microspectroscopic Evidence of

Cretaceous Bone Proteins. PLoS ONE 6(4): e19445 DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0019445