rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Discovering the mammoth
    sub title: a tale of giants, unicorns, ivory, and the birth of a new science
  name:
    name part: McKay, John J.
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: nyu
    date issued: 2017
    copyright date: 2017
    edition: First Pegasus Books cloth edition.
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: xiii, 241 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.
  abstract: 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, Benjamin 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.
  table of contents: Giants and unicorns -- The ivory trail -- Eastern travelers -- The Swedes -- Academies and journals -- The American cousin -- Siberia and Paris -- The first great mammoth.
  note: John J. McKay.
  note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
  subject:
    topic: Mammoths
  subject:
    topic: Woolly mammoth
  subject:
    topic: Fossils
    topic: Social aspects
  subject:
    topic: Paleontology
    topic: History
  subject:
    topic: NATURE / Animals / Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures
  subject:
    topic: NATURE / Fossils
  subject:
    topic: SCIENCE / Natural History
  subject:
    topic: SCIENCE / Paleontology
  classification: QE882.P8 M425 2017
  classification: 569.67
  identifier: 9781681774244
  identifier: 1681774240
  record info:
    record content source: BTCTA
    record creation date: 161002
    record change date: 20171016141149.0
    record identifier: in00003886069