In 1613 in Dauphine, southern France, a group of workmen digging a well found large bones, including long bones about 4 feet long. The local provincial governor had asked everyone to be on the lookout for anything worth putting in his cabinet of curiosity, so this seemed promising. So the local landowner out sent for barber-surgeon Pierre Mazurier to confirm that this might be a find worth bringing to the governor's attention, and Mazurier confidently stated that they were giant bones. After all, the locals called the area the Field of Giants.

Unfortunately as they were picked out mostly they fell apart, but bits of jaw and teeth, one rib, one tibia, two vertebrae, a few other bits survived. They were sent to the medical school at Montpelier where it was agreed, this was clearly the skeleton of a giant.

Mazurier next paid for the rights to show the bones for 18 months unless the king wanted them (which would, of course, take priority). But to sell tickets, he needed a gripping story. He got someone to write a pamphlet of “the life, death and bones of giant Theutobochus, king of teutons” from 105 BC, killed by Roman legions. This was a real leader who died in roughly 100BC at the hands of the Romans; a lot of legend had built around this central fact. The pamphlet also detailed each of the bones - including those which disintegrated - and talked about how the bones had been found in a 30 foot long "brick tomb" with a headstone. In reality the tomb and engraved stone, were at best an optimistic reading of the hard brick-red soil.

While Mazurier was touring, the king heard about the bones, and claimed them. He was only 11, after all, but still sceptical - when an advisor said what a wonderful army such giants would make, the young Louis XVIII answered that they would soon eat all the food in the country.

Parisian surgeons argued in print for years to come over whether these really were giant bones; or whale bones, or just unusual rocks. One of the texts from this uses the word “fossil” – to mean a natural rock that just happened to look like bones; previously had meant “something dug up". The case fuelled a wider debate over the meaning of other huge bones found over the years, especially after two rival universities took opposing stances. One academic said they were the remains of one of Hannibal's elephants. They are now thought to belong to a deinotherium, an early relative of the elephant.