Discovering The Mammoth A Tale Of Giants Unicorns Ivory And The Birth Of A New Science

Author : John J McKay
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 168177481X
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Discovering the Mammoth written by John J McKay and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating saga of solving the mystery of this ancient animal who once roamed the north country—and has captivated our collective imagination ever since. Today, we know that a mammoth is an extinct type of elephant that was covered with long fur and lived in the north country during the ice ages. But how do you figure out what a mammoth is if you have no concept of extinction, ice ages, or fossils? Long after the last mammoth died and was no longer part of the human diet, it still played a role in human life. Cultures around the world interpreted the remains of mammoths through the lens of their own worldview and mythology. When the ancient Greeks saw deposits of giant fossils, they knew they had discovered the battle fields where the gods had vanquished the Titans. When the Chinese discovered buried ivory, they knew they had found dragons’ teeth. But as the Age of Reason dawned, monsters and giants gave way to the scientific method. Yet the mystery of these mighty bones remained. How did Enlightenment thinkers overcome centuries of myth and misunderstanding to reconstruct an unknown animal? The journey to unravel that puzzle begins in the 1690s with the arrival of new type of ivory on the European market bearing the exotic name "mammoth." It ends during the Napoleonic Wars with the first recovery of a frozen mammoth. The path to figuring out the mammoth was traveled by merchants, diplomats, missionaries, cranky doctors, collectors of natural wonders, Swedish POWs, Peter the Great, Ben Franklin, the inventor of hot chocolate, and even one pirate. McKay brings together dozens of original documents and illustrations, some ignored for centuries, to show how this odd assortment of characters solved the mystery of the mammoth and, in doing so, created the science of paleontology.

Author : John J McKay
Publisher : Pegasus Books
ISBN 13 : 9781681778037
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Discovering the Mammoth written by John J McKay and published by Pegasus Books. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long after the last mammoth died and was no longer part of our diet, this awe inspiring creature still played a role in human life. Cultures around the world interpreted the remains of mammoths through their own world view and mythology. When the ancient Greeks saw deposits of giant fossils, they knew they had discovered where the gods had vanquished the titans. When the Chinese discovered buried ivory, they knew they had found dragons’ teeth.But as the Age of Reason dawned, monsters and giants gave way to the scientific method. Yet the mystery of these mighty bones remained. How did Enlightenment thinkers overcome centuries of myth and misunderstanding to reconstruct an unknown animal?The journey to unravel that puzzle begins in the 1690s with the arrival of a new type of ivory from Russia. It ends during the Napoleonic Wars with the first recovery of a frozen mammoth. The path to figuring out the mammoth was traveled by a colorful cast of characters, including Peter the Great, Ben Franklin, the inventor of hot chocolate, even one pirate, and it culminates with the creation of the science of paleontology.

Author : Dan Flores
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 132400617X
Total Pages : 478 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in America written by Dan Flores and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Kirkus Review's Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 A deep-time history of animals and humans in North America, by the best-selling and award-winning author of Coyote America. In 1908, near Folsom, New Mexico, a cowboy discovered the remains of a herd of extinct giant bison. By examining flint points embedded in the bones, archeologists later determined that a band of humans had killed and butchered the animals 12,450 years ago. This discovery vastly expanded America’s known human history but also revealed the long-standing danger Homo sapiens presented to the continent’s evolutionary richness. Distinguished author Dan Flores’s ambitious history chronicles the epoch in which humans and animals have coexisted in the “wild new world” of North America—a place shaped both by its own grand evolutionary forces and by momentous arrivals from Asia, Africa, and Europe. With portraits of iconic creatures such as mammoths, horses, wolves, and bison, Flores describes the evolution and historical ecology of North America like never before. The arrival of humans precipitated an extraordinary disruption of this teeming environment. Flores treats humans not as a species apart but as a new animal entering two continents that had never seen our likes before. He shows how our long past as carnivorous hunters helped us settle America, initially establishing a coast-to-coast culture that lasted longer than the present United States. But humanity’s success had devastating consequences for other creatures. In telling this epic story, Flores traces the origins of today’s “Sixth Extinction” to the spread of humans around the world; tracks the story of a hundred centuries of Native America; explains how Old World ideologies precipitated 400 years of market-driven slaughter that devastated so many ancient American species; and explores the decline and miraculous recovery of species in recent decades. In thrilling narrative style, informed by genomic science, evolutionary biology, and environmental history, Flores celebrates the astonishing bestiary that arose on our continent and introduces the complex human cultures and individuals who hastened its eradication, studied America’s animals, and moved heaven and earth to rescue them. Eons in scope and continental in scale, Wild New World is a sweeping yet intimate Big History of the animal-human story in America.

Author : Edward Dolnick
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1982199636
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party written by Edward Dolnick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The Clockwork Universe and The Writing of the Gods, a historical adventure story about the eccentric Victorians who discovered dinosaur bones, leading to a whole new understanding of human history. In the early 1800s the world was a safe and cozy place. But then a twelve-year-old farm boy in Massachusetts stumbled on a row of fossilized three-toed footprints the size of dinner plates—the first dinosaur tracks ever found. Soon, in England, Victorians unearthed enormous bones—bones that reached as high as a man’s head. No one had ever seen such things. Outside of myths and fairy tales, no one had even imagined that creatures like three-toed giants had once lumbered across the land. And if anyone had somehow conjured up such a scene, they would never have imagined that all those animals could have vanished, hundreds of millions years ago. The thought of sudden, arbitrary disappearance from life was unnerving and forced the Victorians to rethink everything they knew about the world. Now, in Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, celebrated storyteller and historian Edward Dolnick leads us through a compelling true adventure as the paleontologists of the first half of the 19th century puzzled their way through the fossil record to create the story of dinosaurs we know today. The tale begins with Mary Anning, a poor, uneducated woman who had a sixth sense for finding fossils buried deep inside cliffs; and moves to a brilliant, eccentric geologist named William Buckland, a kind of Doctor Doolittle on a mission to eat his way through the entire animal kingdom; and then on to Richard Owen, the most respected and the most despised scientist of his generation. Entertaining, erudite, and featuring an unconventional cast of characters, Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party tells the story of how the accidental discovery of prehistoric creatures upended humanity’s understanding of the world and their place in it, and how a group of paleontologists worked to bring it back into focus again.

Author : George A. Feldhamer
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421436531
Total Pages : 741 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mammalogy written by George A. Feldhamer and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2020-03-24 with total page 741 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A completely revised and updated edition of the leading mammalogy textbook, featuring color photographs throughout and a new streamlined structure for enhanced use in courses. There are more than 6,400 species in the class Mammalia, including the blue whale—the largest animal that has ever lived—and the pygmy shrew, which weighs little more than a dime. Such diversity among mammals has allowed them to play critical roles in every ecosystem, whether marine, freshwater, alpine, tundra, forest, or desert. Reflecting the expertise and perspective of five leading mammalogists, the fifth edition of Mammalogy: Adaptation, Diversity, Ecology significantly updates taxonomy, adds a new introductory chapter on the science of mammalogy, and highlights several recently described species. To enhance its appeal to students, textual material has been reduced, consolidated, and streamlined without sacrificing breadth or depth of coverage. The fifth edition includes • for the first time, stunning color photographs throughout • chapters rearranged and grouped to best reflect phylogenetic relationships, with updated numbers of genera and species for each family • updated mammalian structural and functional adaptations, as well as ordinal fossil histories • recent advances in mammalian phylogeny, biogeography, social behavior, and ecology, with 12 new or revised cladograms reflecting current research findings • new breakout boxes on novel or unique aspects of mammals • new work on female post-copulatory mate choice, cooperative behaviors, group defense, and the role of the vomeronasal system • discussions of the current implications of climate change and other anthropogenic factors for mammals Maintaining the accessible, readable style for which Feldhamer and his coauthors are well known, this new edition of Mammalogy is the authoritative textbook on this amazingly diverse class of vertebrates.

Author : Robert E Bedeski
Publisher : World Scientific
ISBN 13 : 1800610599
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Dynamics Of The Korean State: From The Paleolithic Age To Candlelight Democracy written by Robert E Bedeski and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2021-09-23 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One Korea or two?The persistence of North and South Korea since 1948 has been a source of one war and fears of new wars. Although they share centuries of common culture, society and politics, the two nations differ on fundamentals today: capitalist democracy in the south and totalitarian communism in the north. Dynamics of the Korean State provides a unique overview of how humans treasure their individual lives and how these dynamics intertwine with Korean history and state evolution.The book examines the development of the Korean state from ancient times and sees its roots in the Stone Age struggle for survival. The persistent theme has been to Prolong Life — Postpone Death. Hence, the origins of every state can be found in man's Will-to-Live, and this is demonstrated in the Will/action framework offered by the author. Human Will, not material determinism or divine plan, creates the state. This primary Will generates five other Wills, which motivate actions to culminate in the state and give it a fluidity over time. The six Wills/actions are as follows: Will-to-Live/production; Will-to-Freedom/innovation; Will-to-Power/organization; Will-to-Comply/enforcement; Will-to-Transcend/political vision & religion; and Will-to-Redirect/reform, usurpation, rebellion, revolution. These in combination influence and partially determine state configuration and fluidity, creating order, disorder, war, prosperity, and poverty along the way. This book reveals the undercurrents of Korean society, politics and history from a fresh perspective. Neither pure history nor descriptive politics, it is a significant contribution to a philosophical anthropology paradigm.

Author : Samuel Turvey
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1399409794
Total Pages : 187 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Tomb of the Mili Mongga written by Samuel Turvey and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-02-15 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Tomb of the Mili Mongga lives up to its magnificent billing' DAILY TELEGRAPH - A fossil expedition becomes a thrilling search for a mythical beast deep in the Indonesian forest – and a fascinating look at how fossils, folklore, and biodiversity converge. A tale of exciting scientific discovery, The Tomb of the Mili Mongga tells the story of Samuel Turvey's expeditions to the island of Sumba in eastern Indonesia. While there, he discovers an entire recently extinct mammal fauna from the island's fossil record, revealing how islands support some of the world's most remarkable biodiversity, and why many of these unique endemic species are threatened with extinction or have already been lost. But as the story unfolds, an unexpected narrative emerges – Sumba's Indigenous communities tell of a mysterious wildman called the 'mili mongga', a giant yeti-like beast that supposedly lives in the island's remote forests. What is behind the stories of the mili mongga? Is there a link between this enigmatic entity and the fossils that Sam is looking for? And what did he discover when he finally found the tomb of a mili mongga? Combining evolution, anthropology, travel writing and cryptozoology, The Tomb of the Mili Mongga explores the relationship between biodiversity and culture, what reality means from different cultural perspectives, and how folklore, fossils and conservation can be linked together in surprising ways.

Author : Gabriele Ferretti
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429670451
Total Pages : 456 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Molyneux’s Question and the History of Philosophy written by Gabriele Ferretti and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1688 the Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux sent a letter to the philosopher John Locke. In it, he asked him a question: could someone who was born blind, and able to distinguish a globe and a cube by touch, be able to immediately distinguish and name these shapes by sight if given the ability to see? The philosophical puzzle offered in Molyneux’s letter fascinated not only Locke, but major thinkers such as Leibniz, Berkeley, Diderot, Reid, and numerous others including psychologists and cognitive scientists today. Does such a question represent a philosophical puzzle or a problem that can be solved by experimental tests? Can vision be fully restored after blindness? What is the relation between vision and touch? Are the senses linked through learning or bound at birth? Molyneux’s Question and the History of Philosophy is a major collection of essays that explore the long-standing issues Molyneux’s problem presents to philosophy of mind, perception and the senses. In addition, the volume considers the question from an interdisciplinary angle, examines the pre-history of the question, and aspects of it that have been ignored, such as perspectives from religion and disability. As such, Molyneux’s Question and the History of Philosophy presents a set of philosophically rich, empirically informed, and scientifically rigorous original investigations into this famous puzzle. It will be of great interest to students and researchers in philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences including neuroscience, neurobiology and ophthalmology, as well as those studying the mind, perception and the senses.

Author : Charlotte Wrigley
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 1452968985
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood written by Charlotte Wrigley and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2023-04-04 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring one of the greatest potential contributors to climate change—thawing permafrost—and the anxiety of extinction on an increasingly hostile planet Climate scientists point to permafrost as a “ticking time bomb” for the planet, and from the Arctic, apocalyptic narratives proliferate on the devastating effects permafrost thaw poses to human survival. In Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood, Charlotte Wrigley considers how permafrost—and its disappearance—redefines extinction to be a lack of continuity, both material and social, and something that affects not only life on earth but nonlife, too. Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood approaches the topic of thawing permafrost and the wild new economies and mitigation strategies forming in the far north through a study of the Sakha Republic, Russia’s largest region, and its capital city Yakutsk, which is the coldest city in the world and built on permafrost. Wrigley examines people who are creating commerce out of thawing permafrost, including scientists wishing to recreate the prehistoric “Mammoth steppe” ecosystem by eventually rewilding resurrected woolly mammoths, Indigenous people who forage the tundra for exposed mammoth bodies to sell their tusks, and government officials hoping to keep their city standing as the ground collapses under it. Warming begets thawing begets economic activity— and as a result, permafrost becomes discontinuous, both as land and as a social category, in ways that have implications for the entire planet. Discontinuity, Wrigley shows, eventually evolves into extinction. Offering a new way of defining extinction through the concept of “discontinuity,” Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood presents a meditative and story-focused engagement with permafrost as more than just frozen ground.

Author : Derek Baxter
Publisher : Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1728225396
Total Pages : 425 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

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Download or read book In Pursuit of Jefferson written by Derek Baxter and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A debut that combines historical nonfiction with travel books, for fans of Bill Bryson and Tony Horwitz, In Pursuit of Jefferson is the story of an American on a journey through Europe, following the epic trail of Thomas Jefferson. A controversial founding father. A man ready for a change. And a completely unique trip through Europe. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson was a broken man. Reeling from the loss of his wife and stung from a political scandal during the Revolutionary war, he needed to remake himself. To do that, he traveled. Wandering through Europe, Jefferson saw and learned as much as he could, ultimately bringing his knowledge home to a young America. There, he would rise to power and shape a nation. More than two hundred years later, Derek Baxter, a devotee of American history, stumbles on an obscure travel guide written by Jefferson—Hints for Americans Traveling Through Europe—as he's going through his own personal crisis. Who better to offer advice than a founding father himself? Using Hints as his roadmap, Baxter follows Jefferson through six countries and countless lessons. But what Baxter learns isn't always what Jefferson had in mind, and as he comes to understand Jefferson better, he doesn't always like what he finds. In Pursuit of Jefferson is at once the story of a life-changing trip through Europe, an unflinching look at a founding father, and a moving personal journey. With rich historical detail, a sense of humor, and boundless heart, Baxter explores how we can be better moving forward only by first looking back.