Early theories about Ice Age Animals
The remains of extinct ice age animals have fascinated people for many centuries. In central Europe, particularly in the sixteenth century, mammoth and woolly rhinoceros bones gave rise to legends of giants and unicorns. Such bones were sometimes venerated as relics of (giant) saints, while the horn of 'unicorns' was widely sold for medicinal purposes. The existence of fantastic animals was widely accepted–the extensive remains of cave bears from Drachenhoehle ('Dragon Cave') in Austria, for instance was seen to be evidence of the presence of dragons. And in China, huge numbers of fossil bones and teeth have been collected and ground up for use as 'dragon bones' in traditional medicine.
Woolly mammoth.
Artist: Caroll.L. Fenton.
Source and copyright: Patricia Vickers-Rich.
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The scientific study of the remains of ice age (or Pleistocene) animals commenced in the eighteenth century, and became a major area of inquiry in the nineteenth century with the establishment of museums. As a result of this work, a large number of fossil sites throughout the world have been studied, yielding an amazing array of material related to these extinct animals and the environments they inhabited.
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