Discovering the Mammoth: a Tale of Giants, Unicorns, Ivory, And the Birth of a New Science by John J. McKay

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.

Publisher:	Pegasus Books Ltd.,
Year:	2017
Binding:	Hardback
ISBN:	9781681774244
Condition:	Good
Description:	DJ; Ex Library.

Note: This image is from a stock photo and may differ from the actual cover.

SKU: 1240126
Location: Science