[BiteCode_dev]

I always though that dragons were also sourced from a vague genetic memory passed down from very remote ancestors that met dino descendants.

[BeniBoy]

The other way around is more plausible to me: the way we reconstructed dinosaurs was influenced by the corpus of representations we developed with dragons.

[littlestymaar]

Oh, I never thought of that, but it could explain why the idea of dinosaur with feather sounds weird even though biologically it wouldn't be surprising at all.

[Bayart]

It makes less sense than imaginations running wild at the sight of crocodiles and dinosaur bones.

[b112]

Even the fisherman's tale of how big the fish was, applies.

Some guy with a sword kills a big croc, which is a good feat! Yet each telling the croc is bigger, more fierce, especially as the alcohol flows.

His grandkids hear the story too.

[harimau777]

Don't forget hippos! Their skin can be up to two inches thick. That would be incredibly difficult to penetrate with stone age (or even later) weapons.

[Mikhail_Edoshin]

Chinese dragons may be a better depiction of what could be the source of the myth. A Chinese dragon is like a flying snake, although I'm not sure they ascribe fire-breathing to it. But if you combine a flying snake and fire-breathing then there was an ancient device that looked very much like such a creature.

Some ancient armies used long cloth bags as flags or banners, to impress the enemies or maybe to signal the position of themselves for the allies to see. They filled the bags with hot air and the bags rose to the sky as contemporary balloons.

Imagine how it looked from the enemy side: an army is approaching and long snake-like things are flying about the mass of people. And you can glimpse some fire at the end that is close to the ground. Could it be a creature that breaths fire? And occasionally these things detached and flew up to the sky. Perfect dragons.

[abakker]

13th warrior?

[nobodyandproud]

Upvoted, for doubly-applicable reference.

[fogihujy]

Well, there's been a number of very large bird and reptile species that humanity has been in contact with since the dawn of man. Many of our forefathers were rather small compared to modern humans, and a gigantic serpent or amphibian would probably be outright terrifying for small early humans armed with rocks and spears.

I'm not sure about genetic memory, but human oral tradition is very old, and while I haven't heard about any evidence suggesting it predates modern humans, I wouldn't be surprised if there are stories that turns out to be as old as human language is.

[KptMarchewa]

Or found their skeletons.

[Igelau]

I agree. Imagine finding something like a Pachycephalosaurus skeleton without a modern education.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pachycephalosaurus_w...

If you're in a pre-civilized, just-barely-scraping-by survival mode, you'd probably conclude: (1) this thing was a monster, and if it lived here I'm not safe. (2) This thing must have been killed by something worse, and if it's around I'm really not safe.

[wincy]

It’s a very good possibility that the reason we think dragons lived in caves was because there are so many cave bear skeletal remains in caves throughout Europe.

Imagine finding a 12 foot long skeleton in a cave, or just a skull of an impossibly large animal, of course it’s a dragon!

[JackFr]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_of_Dragons_(book)