e-branch
Login
My List - 0
Help
Home
My Account/Renew Loans
Community Info
KidSearch
New Catalogue!
Search
Advanced
By Format
By Number
My Searches
Can't Find it?
Find Magazine Articles & more
Problems?
Search:
Call Number
Item Barcode
Bib Number
ISBN/ISSN
Refine Search
> You're searching:
Halifax Public Libraries
Item Information
Booklist Review
Library Journal Review
Publisher Weekly Review
Table of Contents
More Content
More by this author
McKay, John J.
Subjects
Mammoths.
Woolly mammoth.
Fossils -- Social aspects.
Paleontology -- History.
Browse Catalog
by author:
McKay, John J.
by title:
Discovering the mamm...
by call number:
569.67 M153d
Search the Web
McKay, John J.
Mammoths.
Woolly mammoth.
Fossils -- Social aspects.
Paleontology -- History.
MARC Display
Discovering the mammoth : a tale of giants, unicorns, ivory, and the birth of a new science / John J. McKay.
by
McKay, John J.
Pegasus Books Ltd., c2017.
Call #:
569
.67
M153d
Subjects
Mammoths.
Woolly mammoth.
Fossils -- Social aspects.
Paleontology -- History.
ISBN:
9781681774244 (hc)
1681774240 (hc)
Edition:
1st Pegasus Books cloth ed.
Description:
xiii, 241 p., [8] p. of plates : ill., map ; 24 cm.
Bibliography:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-234) and index.
Contents:
Introduction -- Giants and unicorns -- The ivory trail -- Eastern travelers -- The Swedes -- Academies and journals -- The American cousin -- Siberia and Paris -- The first great mammoth -- Afterword.
Summary:
"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."--Dust jacket.
Holds:
0
Copy/Holding information
No Item Information
Horizon Information Portal 3.24_8902M
© 2001-2013
SirsiDynix
All rights reserved.