This programme, available on BBC iplayer, looks at how fossils have been viewed and explained by earlier generations. It’s such an obvious question really, the ancient Greeks also dug up fossils so what did they make of them?

From the oral history of native Americans to Chinese medicine, the suggestion is that large fossilised bones may have shaped the mythologies of past cultures more than we realise. Without being a palaeontologist is hard to know if data to support the hypothesis has been cherry picked or not, but it’s an idea that makes sense. The myths of Dragons, Cyclops and Griffins may have their origin as serious attempts to explain fossils. My favourite idea was the Gorgons (such as Medusa) to explanation why the bones were made of stone. Somehow it seems far more exciting than the modern understandings.