> >
> >Seems pretty unlikely that the ancients would have
> found a T-Rex skeleton
> >complete enough to give them any idea of what the
> animal would have looked
> >like when alive, or indeed any dinosaur skeleton
> that would have let them
> >understand that they were looking at the remains of
> a lizard-like creature.
<snip>
This is something I've also wondered about for ages. Maybe there were some intact skeletons found in our prehistory. The very fact that they *were* found may have led to their being destroyed or ferreted away for one reason or another, hence no "smoking guns".
Look what happenned to some Mastodon relics.. they were (supposedly) fed to dogs!
Any early discoveries would have been in "easy"
places,
leaving us with harder pickings.
The ancient Greeks definitely had noted fossil sea shells in uplands, and theorised various changes (including catastrophes) to explain them.
> So, has anyone seen any gargoyles that look
> sufficiently Protoceratopsian
> that might add credence to this claim?
Nuts.. everyone knows that Gargoyles were modelled on the Hunchback of Notre Dame (or maybe Charles Laughton) :-).
Mike