Have archaeologists ever found evidence of ancient cultures collecting fossils or any any other items?

Answer 1

Yes! Below is answer specifically relating to the Greek and later classical world, though other cultures certainly had their own interactions with fossils. The author Adrienne Mayor has written an excellent book called The First Fossil Hunters on this very topic. She details how fossils may have contributed to an early mythohistorical understanding of the natural world. There is archaeological evidence from the sanctuary to Hera on Samos of individuals dedicating fossils and the bones of other exotic animals to the goddess. A fossilized femur belonging to a Miocene mastodon or rhinoceros was found there (Kyrieleis 220).

There is also textual and iconographic evidence suggesting that people interacted with fossils in the ancient world. One of Adrienne Mayor's best illustrations of this is a 6^th century krater (type of mixing bowl) from Greece showing the so-called "Monster of Troy." Mayor believes that it depicts a fossilized skull from an extinct animal (Mayor 159). The textual record suggests that individuals in the ancient world had a familiarity with fossilized ivory. Theophrastus mentions a kind of ivory that has been "ορυκτός" or "dug up," which is believed to be fossilized remains of an extinct proboscidean (e.g., mammoth) (Theophr. 37-38). In Pliny the Elder's Natural History, he tells a story of elephants burying their tusks. This has been thought to be an explanatory mechanism for the discovery of fossilized tusks in places which no longer are home to elephants.

Finally, there is a tradition of "Hero Bone Transfer" in the Greek world beginning perhaps as early as the 8th century BCE (see McCauley 1998). Hero Bones were described bones that were so large that they must have belonged to one of the ancient heroes. Mayor has argued that these bones were in fact fossils which were exchanged between cities in the time after the 8th century BCE.

There is iconographic, textual, and archaeological evidence for the role of fossils in the Greek world. Any student who is curious about this phenomenon should start with Adrienne Mayor's book on the subject!

Adrienne Mayor - The First Fossil Hunters (https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691150130/the-first-fossil-hunters)

Kyrieleis, Helmut. "Offerings of the common man in the Heraion at Samos." Early Greek cult practice (1988): 215-21.

The Transfer of Hippodameia's Bones: A Historical Context

Barbara McCauley

The Classical Journal

Vol. 93, No. 3 (Feb. - Mar., 1998), pp. 225-239