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Safety Island newspaperman Liu Yadong a
Source: Institute of Geology and Geosciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Author: Zhu Jianning
As a big food country, China has a variety of special snacks in every place. Even in Sichuan, many people have eaten large dinosaurs, of course, to be precise, dinosaur fossils. Dinosaur fossils are not only ingredients, but also a medicinal herb that blindly cures diseases and saves people - "keel". In 1957, when the Mamenxi dragon in Hechuan, Sichuan was first discovered, many people knocked down fossils for medicinal materials, which is not the first time we have taken large dinosaurs. Written in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the "Huayang Guozhi" recorded the discovery of dinosaur fossils in Wucheng, Sichuan, and people at that time thought it was the skeleton of a dragon, so they put it into medicine and named it "keel". Subsequently, with the discovery of more and more fossils, the connotation of "keel" has also been greatly expanded, including various types of fossils.
Mamen Creek Dragon Statue
"Keel" does not specifically refer to dinosaur fossils, the "keel" in Chinese medicine actually refers to the Cenozoic mammals such as three-toed horses, rhinoceros, deer, cattle and other skeletal fossils or fossils of elephant incisors. Traditional Chinese medicine usually divides the keel into south road goods and north road goods, of which the north road goods are mainly rhinoceros, elephants, three-toed horses and deer fossils in the Pliocene-Pleistocene strata in the northern provinces of China, while the south road goods are mainly from the fossils of the Pleistocene middle and late giant panda-saber-toothed elephant fauna in caves in south China provinces in China. In this way, there are still many fossils that we have eaten.
Medicinal Keel (Source URL https://www.fanhuangli.com/a/66.html)
Traditional Chinese medicine keel (image source China Pharmaceutical Network)
West's three-toed horse with broken right jaw [1]
The earliest link between fossils and traditional Chinese medicine is the Shennong Materia Medica, which for the first time put forward the idea that the keel is the "bone of the dragon's death". The idea that dragons will be reborn like snakes molting their skins, and that "where dragons are liberated is there", is nothing more than the fact that the ancestors saw the huge animal skeleton fossils but could not explain it, and they were placed on the most mysterious force in traditional Chinese mythology - the dragon.
Shennong Materia Medica (source watermark)
The image of a dragon in Chinese myths and legends
In addition to large fossils, the ancients discovered other types of fossils and integrated them into life. As early as the Southern and Northern Dynasties Tao Hongjing wrote in the "Notes on the Collection of Materia Medica", "The number of dragon cells in Bilaiba, I saw that the form existed, yunzhi was difficult to give birth, and the afterpartum illness was just the end of the service." It is likely that the discovery of fossilized dinosaur egg embryos was recorded. These dinosaur egg fossils fell into the hands of a generation of famous doctors Tao Hongjing, of course, as a good medicine for the relief of patients.
Dinosaur egg fossils
In addition, Tao Hongjing was also exposed to amber fossils. Tao Hongjing even put forward the idea of the origin of amber fossils in the "Notes on the Materia Medica" - "amber, the old saying that pine resin fell into the earth for thousands of years". This is very consistent with the current pattern of amber fossil genesis. Tao Hongjing also recorded the insect fossils wrapped in amber, "there are bees in amber, all kinds of life", although the specific year is not available, but this can be said to be one of the earliest human observations and records of amber fossils.
Annotations on the Materia Medica (source watermark)
Amber wrapped in insects
The ancients did not put all fossils into medicine. Many people have explored the causes of fossils, and these can be said to be the earliest paleontologists or geologists to some extent. The earliest discussion of the origin of fossils can be traced back to Confucius and his old man's home. In the "History of Confucius's Family", it is recorded that the envoys of the State of Wu asked Confucius for advice and found huge bones, so large that a car could only hold the next bone, the so-called "bone section special car". Confucius replied that it was the bones of the windproof giant, and although there was no scientific basis, it was the first time that an idea was proposed about the source of paleontological fossils.
Windproof imagination diagram [2]
With the discovery of more and more fossils, the ancients' understanding of the causes of fossils has become more and more in-depth. In the Song Dynasty, Shen Kuo recorded many fossils and their causes in the "Mengxi Pen Talk".
"Mengxi Pen Talk" (source Douban)
In Volume 21, Shen Kuo records the discovery of stalagmites in Yanzhou (present-day Yan'an, Shaanxi), "a forest of bamboo shoots under the soil, where hundreds of stems and roots are connected, are fossils", and the word "fossil" has been clearly proposed here. Then he thought, "There is no bamboo in Yan County, and it is under dozens of feet of soil, and I don't know what its substitute is." Before the ancient times, the ground was humble and wet and suitable for bamboo? "The climate in Yanzhou at that time was not suitable for growing bamboo, and the bamboo that turned into stone probably meant that before ancient times, the low-lying climate here was humid and suitable for bamboo growth, so bamboo turned into caryophyllus after death." Shen Kuo was keenly aware that the caryophyllite fossils were a record of climate change in Yanzhou.
Yunnan found the earliest bamboo fossils in China[3]
In addition, Shen Kuo also recorded the discovery of conch fossils on the Taihang Mountains, and Zhu Xi also mentioned in the "Zhu Zi Quanshu" that "there are snail shells in the mountains, or in raw stones". Both believe that the distribution of land and sea is not as static as people think, based on the fact that fossils of marine life have appeared in the mountains. This was arguably a very advanced view at the time.
In fact, in addition to fossils and preliminary geological research, the ancients and fossils can have much more contact than we think. Fossils like amber, which are beautiful and relatively easy to obtain, have long been made into jewelry and worn on the body. And what is unexpected is that the ancients did not even let go of the trilobite. At that time, the trilobite because of its shape like swallows and bats, also known as "swallow worms" and "bat worms", beautiful fossils were selected to make small handlebars or paperweights, and those that did not look so good were processed into brick platforms, and the rock formations producing bat insects were usually delicate limestone or calcareous shale, and the brick platforms made were delicate and smooth, and were also named "multi-bat stones".
Batworm fossils
In the current era when fossils are either museum exhibits or personal collections, it is really difficult for us to imagine that the daily life of ancient people and fossils are so closely related: wearing amber pendants with ancient insects, using trilobite paperweights, usually there is nothing to go up the mountain to see marine paleontological fossils, and when you are sick, you can grab some dinosaur bones and eat them.
However, with more and more interesting paleontological science, more and more fossils have been brought back to the public eye. Conservation excavation of paleontological fossils, so that the ancient pre-ancient paleontology participate in both scientific research and science popularization, in order to make a piece of fossils revitalized.
The unspecified images are from Figureworm's creations
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