Download Big Bone Lick: The Cradle of American Paleontology AudioBook Free
Shawnee legend instructs of a herd of huge bison rampaging through the Ohio Valley, laying waste products to all or any in their route. To safeguard the tribe, a deity slew these great beasts with lightning bolts, finally running after the last giant buffalo into exile across the Wabash River, to never trouble the Shawnee again. The source of this star was a peculiar salt lick in present-day northern Kentucky, where giant fossilized skeletons acquired for years and years lain undisturbed by the Shawnee and other natives of the region. In 1739, the first Europeans experienced this fossil site, which eventually had become known as Big Bone Lick. The website drew the interest of all who heard of it, including George Washington, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and especially Thomas Jefferson. The giant bone fragments immediately cast many methodical and philosophical assumptions of your day into doubt, and they eventually gave surge to the analysis of fossils for natural and historical purposes. Big Bone Lick: The Cradle of North american Paleontology recounts the rich history of the fossil site that provided the entire world the first evidence of the extinction of several mammalian kinds, including the American mastodon. Big Bone Lick has performed many roles: nutritional source, hallowed surface, salt mine, health spa, and a rich trove of archaeological and paleontological miracles. Natural historian Stanley Hedeen reveals a comprehensive narrative of Big Bone Lick from its geological development forward, describing why the site attracted animals, local tribespeople, Western european explorers and experts, and eventually American pioneers and presidents. Big Bone Lick is the annals of both a place and a methodical self-control: it explores the infancy and adolescence of paleontology from its humble and sometimes humorous beginnings.
