Adrienne Mayor

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Adrienne Mayor is a classical folklorist whose main interests have been pre-Darwinian interpretations of paleontological remains (in The First Fossil Hunters) and the use of biochemical weapons in the ancient world (in Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs).

The topics covered in The First Fossil Hunters include:

The use of woolly rhinoceros and other extinct megafauna remains to create relics of giant heroes in Classical times.
That protoceratops skeletons were the basis for the griffin.

In Greek Fire, all kinds of accounts of the use of animal, bacterial, and chemical weaponry are discussed, including the titular Greek fire. Mayor asserts that the scene of Hercules dipping his arrows in the poisonous blood of the Lernaean Hydra was the first use (mythologically) of chemical weaponry.