You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm & Mild

from Erin Manky.

The Victorian age was a time of wonder.

The people were experiencing things that felt nothing short of magical.

They saw their cities light up with electricity.

They sat for newfangled cameras and took home images of themselves on silver plates.

Cable lines carried their telegrams to loved ones thousands of miles away.

Their disembodied voices flowed through telephone receivers.

They also witnessed the invention of dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs, of course, lived and died far before anyone, let alone people of the Victorian

era, ever stepped foot on this planet.

But it was this generation when the dinosaurs' story began again.

Humans had been on earth and strangely fossilized bones and other remains for centuries.

But what were they exactly?

Where did they come from?

The debate had long been heated.

Some believed they were left by the devil.

Others thought they were remnants of Noah's flood.

At the time in Europe, most didn't realize that these were the remains of creatures who

lived a very long time ago.

The study of these remnants began to codify in the 1700s as paleontology got its start.

The term finds its origin in the Greek words for ancient, paleo, being, anto, and study,

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