fossils

What did our ancestors who were unfamiliar with the origins of the fossilized remains of prehistoric creatures make of them? Did they recognize such things as belemnites, brachiopods, bits of vertebral columns, and other curious, stone objects extracted from the ground as the remains of creatures from long ago? If so, were such creatures factual or fantastic? And in any case, what useful qualities – or even extraordinary, perhaps even magical, powers – did they assume these mysterious objects might posses?