What Were Minecraft Fossils?

Hmm I wonder who to rip o- parody today. Ooo this could be fun. Hello internet welcome to wifeory the show that answers the questions you never asked. And what more fitting than the subject of today’s video. In Minecraft there are no shortage of mysterious features, namely the meaning of disc 11, the

Origin of the endermen and the prophylactic carvings on the sides of desert temples. But one that’s often overlooked is the fossil. I mean the question is right in our faces. What were these things? And that is the topic of today’s video.

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But with that out of the way let’s get into it and I hope you enjoy. [COOL MONTAGE OF FOSSILS] There’s not that many minecraft features that scream, this has lore. I mean you have the end credits, the structures, the achievement names but not that many features. The fossils though definitely do.

I mean, they are literal fossils, something had to be alive to make these bone shapes, but what, and how can we connect it to the whole Minecraft story? In Minecraft there are a lot of different types of fossils but they really only separate into 2 categories. Overworld fossils, and nether fossils.

Overworld fossils have 8 variants, 4 skulls and 4 spines. While nether fossils are just a large assortment of rib cages which is a very interesting detail that I’ll get to later. But let’s start with identifying the overworld fossils for now before we get to the lore of the nether ones.

Something important to point out is the names of the fossil files. Being structures, all the different fossils have file names within Minecraft. The skull’s are named skull 1, skull 2, skull 3, and skull 4. While the spines are also named spine 1, spine 2, spine 3, and spine 4.

This may lead you to think that skull 1 corresponds with spine 1, and skull 4 corresponds with spine 4. While this may be the truth, the skull files are named in order from largest to smallest and the spines are labeled in order from narrowest to widest, leading me to believe there isn’t

A correlation with them matching up. Let’s now briefly take a look at our contenders. The four spines are really the same with varying levels of width. Spine 1 is very narrow and long, spine 2 is just as long but less narrow, spine 3 is even wider and spine 4 is the widest.

The skulls however are significantly different. Skull 1, the largest of the bunch, has a pretty round head shape. It has small eyes, a narrow mouth and a massive nose in the center. Skull 2 has a more condensed shape.

It has closer together and more enclosed eyes, a large mouth and a very small nose in the center. Skull 3 has a very strange shape and has no mouth, two eye sockets in the middle and two strange tusks down the side.

Skull 4 is the smallest and has the same two tusks but only one eye socket or nose socket in the center. Now that we have that established, let’s sort through every mob in Minecraft to see if we have a good fit. After sifting through all the possible options, here are the best results.

Of all the mobs in the game, skull 1 seems to have a pretty strong connection to the sheep texture. They both have this large bridge shaped nose with a small gap for the mouth underneath. Coupled with their small eyes on the edges.

The pig is also a moderate contender for this skull as it shares the same structure but no mouth. Skull 2 had the largest variety of contenders but seems to have a strong relation to the cat and ocelot. They both have close-to-center eyes with a small nose in the middle and a derpy mouth

Underneath. The little bumps over the eyes could also be where the ears would pop up. Some other moderate contenders are the bat, llama and wolf which all share some similarities with skull 2. Skull three has very little matches but seems to line up pretty well with the silverfish.

The little tusks on the bottom can’t really be explained but they both have that very simple symmetric eye structure. There’s also a moderate connection to the fox but it’s not as profound. Skull 4 being one eyed also doesn’t have that many contenders, but obviously the two

One eyed mobs in the game are strong suitors. Both the endermite and guardian could be good matches for this skull, although assuming it matches up with a spine, the connection isn’t quite there yet. There’s also an argument to be made that Skull 4 belongs to a spider.

The hole in the center could correspond with the big clump of eyes that we see in game, and the little tusks could be fangs. Now it has to be said that these fossils and skulls are way larger than the mobs that we

See in game, I mean even the dragon pales in comparison to the smallest skull. However these skulls could have belonged to ancestors of these animals that walked the earth centuries before the player showed up, and have since gone extinct. But we can go further with our search.

Making up wild.com has a database with tons of real skulls of different animals across the globe. We can also search through these to see if there are any convincing matches. Granted these are much more detailed and the connections aren’t as strong.

I mean skull one vaguely looks like a polar bear skull, skull 2 somewhat resembles a canadian lynx and you could argue that skull three is similar to a clawless otter. But surprisingly skull four has two really strong matches. The walrus and the mammoth.

The walrus has a very convincing appearance, with a hole in the center where it’s nose is, and the two tusks on the sides. Same thing with the mammoth or even elephant. It also has this notable hole in the center and obviously the two tusks on sides like skull 4.

All of these are decent guesses as to what roamed the earth prior to the current day mobs. My theory is currently an ancestor of the sheep for skull 1, some sort of cat or ocelot for skull 2, the silverfish for skull 3 and a mammoth or elephant for skull 4.

We can then go on to pair these up with their corresponding spines. With the largest spines being fitted to the largest animals. So the mammoth would have the biggest, then the cat, then the sheep ancestor, then the silverfish ancestor.

But I am interested to see what you think so please do leave a comment with your opinion. I’ll be sure to read through a lot of them and take in your thoughts. But that brings us to mystery number two and I think this one is much cooler, the nether fossils. [NETHER FOSSIL MONTAGE]

The Nether fossils are interesting because of two reasons. One, they only ever generate in the soulsand valley. The nether has 5 different biomes, yet fossils only generate in one. Why is that? The other interesting detail is the shape of the fossils.

While in the overworld you have skulls and spines, in the nether you only get rib cages. There are 13 different designs each consisting of various sized ribs. There’s also one outlier, a singular horizontal sternum, although that again is just where your ribs are connected.

So based on this information alone, an assortment of ribs that only can be found in the soulsand valley, well, I think you’re thinking what I’m thinking. These fossils are ancient withers. Withers have been around for a long time and there’s evidence to confirm it.

Carving sandstone provides you with a little creeper face, but carving red sandstone provides you with a definite image of a wither. Whoever lived in the Minecraft world before us knew that withers existed, and recorded them on the walls of their sandstone.

Red sandstone, just like the nether is red, although that’s probably just a coincidence. Many videos talking about the lore of the nether like that of Retrogamingnow and Game theory mention this soul energy. This blue ungodly power of death that seems to run everything.

A soul campfire made with soulsand burns blue, a beacon powered by a nether star dropped by the wither has a blue core, and even the fog color of the soulsand valley is the same shade of blue. This is even more confirmed when you run over soulsand with soul speed.

The soulspeed enchantment apart from increasing your velocity over soul blocks has a very strange particle effect. Small souls or entities seem to rise up from the soulsand, starting out dull but then turning that same shade of blue as you use their energy to go faster.

But what all these theories fail to mention is how that soul energy exists in the first place, how did it come to be. Soul sand and soul soil while being the 6th and 7th most common blocks in the nether are extremely compacted around the valleys.

Sure there are some small traces of them on beaches and in non natural structures, but they don’t appear anywhere else, even in overworld ruined portals. Something about the soulsand valley attracts soul sand and by association soul energy. And I think the withers have something to do with it.

If it isn’t obvious, withers have soul energy, they’re so closely tied with all of this and not to mention their awakening color and initial skull color is blue. I mean out of every possible color it just happened to be the same color as soul energy, seems unlikely that it’s just random chance.

We also know that withers have the power to transfer their energy, to give life to other similar entities. Whenever a wither kills a mob it will spawn a wither rose, a smaller, more delicate version of its power, still infused with the same soul energy, able to give that withering effect

To anyone who dares step on it. Additionally in the Bedrock edition of the game, once below half health, the wither actually straight up spawns wither skeletons, another more powerful extension of its strength. Also infused with the same ability to give withering.

And isn’t it weird that skeletons, mobs that are usually classified with the overworld, also randomly spawn in the nether? And only in the soulsand vallies. So what am I getting at? The fossils we see in the nether are much larger than the wither we can summon, but

It’s my belief that they belonged to some ancient species of mega wither. Some larger, strongher behemoth that used to roam the nether, terrorizing anyone that stood in its path. The fortresses, and bastions, structures that literally by definition are associated with defense, were specifically constructed to protect from the withers.

Whether that be by the pigmen or ancient builders, someone wanted shelter against these raging monsters. They would travel around, killing anything they saw, and with each life stolen their power grows stronger. Where their soul energy infused skulls landed, the netherrack and blackstone turned to soul sand.

Now infused with the same energy within the withers. And when they finally died out, whether it be from lack of prey, or some other unknown event, their bodies fell to the floor. The massive amounts of soul energy they had accumulated seeped into the ground around them.

Converting it to soul sand, a block infused by the souls those killed by the ancient withers. Some souls escaped and now occupy the haze we find in the biome. And some are released by our soul speed boots. But many, many still lay trapped in the ground.

The skulls of the withers, the places with the highest concentration of soul energy, split off, combining with the souled soil and turning into smaller skeletons around where the host died, leaving only the rib cages in their wake. And if you somehow manage to gather three skulls of wither skeletons, and reunite them

With the soul infused blocks of their creators, well you know what happens. That’s why the withers we summon are so much smaller and weaker, it’s the same soul energy possessed by the ancient ones, but only combined with the skulls of their minions, the wither skeletons.

As to what could have caused these monsters to go extinct, well I don’t know. It could have just been natural, a lack of sufficient food, as they had consumed everything around them. Or some sort of extinction event, an asteroid which could explain why the fortresses and bastions are so ruined.

Although that can also be attributed to wither attacks. Maybe the ancient builders showed up to the nether and killed the monsters, who knows what they were capable of. But I am certain of one thing, ancient withers used to roam the nether, and infused the land

With their soul energy, creating the soul sand we know today. And that is the story of Minecraft’s fossils. If you have any ideas, suggestions or things you would like to discuss, please be sure to comment and I’ll try to read through as many as I can.

If you enjoyed the video, again please leave a like and subscribe, it helps me out a lot and I really do appreciate it. Shout to game theory, obviously this video was in their style, as well as reddit, I’ll link some reddit posts down below that helped inspire me with this theory.

But as always, thank you so much for watching, I hope you enjoyed, and peace out, I’ll see you next time, have a good one