Shropshire Star

Letter: Jurassic art provides a historic headache

With the recent renewed media interest in dinosaurs, I wonder if your readers are aware of the many cave paintings, supposedly drawn or painted by primitive cave men, depicting various dinosaurs?

Published

The Anasazi natives of Utah produced a petroglyph which looks remarkably like a sauropod. Another is from a cave in the San Raphael Swell in Utah, USA. What looks like a Kentrosaurus or Amarga is found near Lake Superior in Canada.

There is a relief on a stone doorpost in Angkor, Cambodia, of what is clearly a Stegosaurus. A stone carving on the bell tower of 14th century Holy Trinity Church on Mount Gergeti, Republic of Georgia, east of the Black Sea, depicts two dinosaurs fighting. Anyone can find a photo of this carving in the Lonely Planet Guide to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, 2008.

A brass carving depicting two sauropod dinosaurs, probably fighting is found on Bishop Betts tomb in the central aisle of Carlisle Cathedral dating back to 1496, this was 300 years before the first dinosaur bones were discovered.

The question is, how did humans know what to draw if, as is claimed, dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago? The evidence would suggest that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time, perhaps just a few thousand years ago. Maybe loss of habitat and other human activities such as hunting them for meat or protection was the reason for their demise.

Makes you think maybe the present view that they became extinct 65 million years ago is wrong.

David Burton, Whitchurch

Send us your letters for publication:

Email us at starmail@shropshirestar.co.uk or write to: Readers' Letters, Shropshire Star, Ketley, Telford, TF1 5HU. Letters MUST include the writer's name, address and telephone number. Letters will only be published anonymously in exceptional circumstances. The editor reserves the right to condense or amend letters.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.