BACK in the days of America's Wild West, explorers found mysterious giant bones at a Kentucky salt lick near the Ohio river. They named the site Big Bone Lick. It took many decades to identify the fossils, and everyone from French anatomist Georges Cuvier to US president Thomas Jefferson weighed in with their opinions on the nature of the beasts. The bones were actually the first evidence of ice-age megafauna to be recognised in North America. Hedeen's history of the site is a fascinating look at a time before we had a grasp on the past.
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