[autisticcurio]

I sometimes wonder if some of the references to the mythical beasts like fire breathing dragons are simply, some now extinct species of animal with embellishments like fire breathing. Lets face it, oral tradition came with a certain degree of embellishment and we know dinosaurs used to exist, but what's the chances of finding the remains of an extinct animal if we tried to look for it? Perhaps the Dodo would be an exception as, iirc, they last lived on an island somewhere killed by sailors for food, but hopefully you get my point. I doubt many skeletal remains would be found with Anglo-Saxon remains because none have been found so far, but do archaeologists looking for Anglo-Saxon remains ignore animal remains during the dig process? Its not something I'm familiar with.

[goto11]

I think you are messing up the timescales. Beowulf is about a thousand years old, while dinosaurs lived hundreds of millions of years ago.

[aptwebapps]

Dinosaurs were not around during the period in question, but their fossils were, as were the crocodilians and large monitor lizards. So if dragons are based on a real thing, I prefer one of those things. But I also think it's a mistake to discount the imaginations and creativity of previous generations. They might simply have imagined a scaled up garden lizard, adding fire-breathing at some point along the way.

[arethuza]

My understanding is that modern archaeology is extremely meticulous about examining pretty much every aspect of materials found during excavations.

Here are some resources from Historic England on the subject:

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/ani...