✉news ScienceScience first seen 5 h ago, last 5 h ago, peak #35
Medieval people mistook mammoth tusks for unicorn horns
Original: 'Giant tusks from Siberia were thought to be the horns of the mythical unicorn': What medieval people made of fossils before vertebrate paleontology
Giant tusks unearthed in Siberia were long believed to be the horns of the mythical unicorn, according to a Live Science feature on fossil interpretation before vertebrate paleontology existed. In the Middle Ages, huge bones and teeth found in the ground were commonly explained through myth, legend and folklore rather than science, with mammoth remains among the most famous examples of such misinterpretation.
Why now: The history of science remains a popular topic, and the striking unicorn explanation for mammoth fossils makes for an eye-catching story.
Evidence
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