October 18, 2012
Dinosaur Stampede, the Musical
About 95 million years ago, in Cretaceous Australia, an aggregation of small dinosaurs scurried along an ancient lake margin in what is the world’s only known “dinosaur stampede.” Exactly what caused the dinosaurs to scatter is a mystery. A set of larger tracks, found at the same quarry, have been cast as the footprints of a big predator who was stalking the mixed herd. But, as the rock record shows, this bigger dinosaur passed by at a different time than that of the stampede. And that bigger dinosaur may not have been a carnivore. A recent reassessment of the site raised the possibility that a large herbivore, akin to Muttaburrasaurus, left the tracks. We really don’t know what caused so many little dinosaurs to skitter away, or even come together in such numbers.
Nevertheless, the dramatic imagery of something like Australovenator pouncing on little ornithopods is hard to beat, and the Lark Quarry site–where the stampede is preserved–recently spawned a hyperbolic documentary. Now there’s a musical version, too. At the 2012 Museum’s Australia National Conference in Elder Hall, Adelaide, performers Michael Mills, Amy Donahue, Tahlia Fantone, Morgan Martin and Tom Goldsmith played out their own version of the dinosaur stampede.
Sadly, the performance perpetuates the myth that the stampede was sparked by a prowling carnivore. The truth is that we don’t know. I can’t necessarily blame the creators, though. Singing “You have to run, run, run. You have to hit top speed. Why? We don’t really know. But there’s still evidence of a dinosaur stampede!” doesn’t work quite as well.
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“Sadly, the performance perpetuates the myth that the stampede was sparked by a prowling carnivore. The truth is that we don’t know. I can’t necessarily blame the creators, though. Singing “You have to run, run, run. You have to hit top speed. Why? We don’t really know. But there’s still evidence of a dinosaur stampede!” doesn’t work quite as well.”
W/all due respect, you’re forgetting about Thulborn 2011 ( http://dml.cmnh.org/2011Nov/msg00387.html ), which criticizes the “recent reassessment of the site” & shows that the “prowling carnivore” hypothesis still fits the evidence best.
“They had to run, run, run.
They had to hit top speed.
We really don’t know why,
there was a dinosaur stampede.”
I don’t know, I think it works pretty well. Just add more stanzas each describing a different scenario why the dinosaurs might have been scared off. (Personally I am fond of my own crazy hypothesis that a large pterosaur glided over the herd causing the smaller dinosaurs to panic, drawing the larger ones with them by their reaction.)
Hi folks,
Many thanks for the posting the song here, and for taking the time to watch and comment.
The song forms part of a show I wrote and perform called “Dinosaurs Down Under, which has a much broader narrative than appears in the clip. The narrative before and after this song, and during the course of the rest of the show explores a whole range of ideas, including the fact that we are still learning about Australovenetor, and Lark Quarry, and that science is an on-going process. “This is what we think might have happened…” is a consistent theme throughout the performance.
The song works amazingly well with it’s intended audience of 4 to 9 year olds as it is. I’d not be wanting to add stanzas, else it end up too long, and awkward. Think of any musical you might have been to see, and the songs form part of the narrative… they are not all of it.
In essence, Australia has a fascinating prehistoric story to be told… this song is but one part of my telling of it.
Kind Regards,
Michael Mills aka Professor Flint