Real Dragons
The most convincing evidence to absolutely prove that at least one type of dragon existed during man's past is the creature known as Megalanie Prisca, which you can find some info about here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania
Again Wikipedia tries to be conservative and unbiased, but the only real controversy is its genus. There is no doubt that "the ancient butcher" was well over 23 feet long (even by conservative estimates) and that it could straddle an average sized man without the man's head touching its chest. Its very breath and spittle were probably highly poisonous, its teeth were as long and sharp as short swords, and as the Wikipedia says "...Varanid lizards are very intelligent, and some species can even count." Most of all, it's not doubted that these things at least occasionally snacked on humans. By my own common sense speculations, it's pretty probable that they were involved in the rituals of early humans such as Mungo Man or the later immigrants to Australia. Sacrifice to or worship of them seems pretty likely just from what we know of early humankind. Most likely we had a large part in helping them to go extinct, together with the end of the so-called ice age and the disappearance of the marsupial megafauna.But Megalania was probably not the only Varanid that was a giant back in those days; most animals were larger back then.Man came to Australia well over 60,000 years ago, and this fact has done much to upset tenured scientists' limited notions of human/erectus displacement patterns as well as the dating generally given to boat-building and sea travel. The conservative estimate for Megalania's demise is 40,000 years ago, but I have heard 19,000 years ago as well(http://www.unmuseum.org/bigliz.htm), and the truth is we just don't know how long they lasted.
It is not entirely improbable that we might find a specimen or derivitive descendent of Megalania in one of the vast stretches of uninhabited and almost inaccessible regions of that continent today. Everyone knows the story of fish being pulled up in modern times that were supposed to be extinct for even millions of years. But what alot of people don't realize is that this phenomenon happens with large land animals as well. Dwarf mammoths have been found living in relatively recent times; several species of deer were recently discovered in Cambodia (formerly part of Sundaland I might add); a new species of monkey has been identified in India; an ape-sized chimp was recently found in Africa (by a fellow Georgian I might add); and in Georgia we just might have found a new species of dire-hawg!http://www.monsterpig.com/
I once read the documentation of the accounts of a dragon that terrorized several counties in England and was slain by a knight. It turns out, when you interpret the old english, that the dragon was an "Asian water dragon." This was the name that Rome had given to what we now call a monitor lizard or a crocodile.This simply begs the question, "Why when we change a creature's name do we then deny vehemently that it ever existed?"
Why does a 50+ foot ice age python seem less terrifying than a Chinese dragon, which is basically the same thing?
None of the dragons I mentioned had wings, and it seems to me that wings were a later embellishment to history's dragon legends. However, I do wonder how big the cousins of the flying foxes in Java got during the "Ice Age." My assumption is that, like almost all Ice Age mammals, they got pretty dang big. A flying fox would be hampered in its evolutionary growth by the laws of gravity, no doubt, but I wouldn't be surprised to find fossils as big as a small wyvern ;).Plus there were birds in those times that would have a condor for brunch, and could easily carry off a small child. Those legends about "Rocs" were probably based on fact.
And there were also other beasts in those times to inspire myths, like the sea serpents, giant squids(prehistoric man was a world-traveled sailor, it has now come to light), giant ground sloths, saber-tooth cats, dire wolves, reverse-tusked giant boars, giant rodents, cave and short faced bears (which would absolutely dwarf a grisly), giant apes (giganthropithecus stood 12 feet tall), and all manner of giant terrors and strange and mystical beasts.And the most interesting thing to me is that, as new evidence comes to light, we are finding that there were civilizations of man during that time period who were at least as advanced as the romantic fantasy-like civilizations of the middle ages. Their technology may or may not have been based on metal, but Dwaraka, the Sphinx, Jericho, and many other ooparts and monolithic structures seem to leave no doubt that there were highly civilized communitties during the time in which remainders of fantasy-like beasts and hominids would have still been around.
No comments:
Post a Comment