The “truth beneath the bones” is that the giants of myth are actually real-life dinosaurs, and that ancient peoples’ encounters with their massive fossilized remains inspired some of the world’s most enduring and fantastic legends. In this compelling narrative, the colossal femurs of a Tyrannosaurus rex become the legs of a mighty, man-eating giant, while the long, serpentine spine of a Sauropod is seen as the body of a monstrous dragon.

The theory suggests that a farmer in ancient Greece, digging in his fields, might unearth a gigantic, serrated dinosaur tooth and interpret it not as a fossil, but as a chilling artifact from a Hydra. A nomadic tribe in the Gobi Desert, encountering a complete skeleton of a Triceratops, might see it as the remains of a mythical Griffon, its bony frill mistaken for a mane and its horns for a beak.

This perspective fundamentally re-imagines the relationship between science and mythology. It argues that the awe, wonder, and terror of seeing these prehistoric giants were too powerful to be ignored. Instead, they were woven into the cultural fabric of a people, passed down through generations not as fact, but as a fantastical tale. In this context, paleontology is not just the study of a lost world of animals, but a form of detective work that uncovers the physical roots of our oldest stories.