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%%The examples on this page have been sorted by medium of origin and alphabetized. Please add new examples in order -- thank you!
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%% Trope was declared Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease via crowner by the Real Life Maintenance thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php?crowner_id=zmg2z4ee
%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800

[[quoteright:300:[[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/asoiaf_mammoths.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:When [[MammothsMeanIceAge Mammoths Mean]] [[MedievalStasis Medieval]].]]

->'''Gail:''' This makes no sense [...] That's clearly an early medieval city. I mean, come on, everyone knows that woolly mammoths died out some time in the late Neolithic period.\\
'''Rob:''' Yeah, everyone knows ''that.''
-->-- ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'', "[[Recap/LoveDeathAndRobotsIceAge Ice Age]]"

Prehistory is full of creatures that could pass for fantastic; [[MammothsMeanIceAge mammoths]], [[SnowySabertooths sabre-toothed cats]], UsefulNotes/{{Dinosaurs}}, and millions of others are strange and unusual enough to be very serviceable fantastic beasts alongside [[OurGryphonsAreDifferent griffins]], [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]], and the like, while still similar enough to modern fauna not to feel too out of place in Earth-like worlds. The problem is, you might think of prehistoric human society as boring. The solution? Medieval Prehistory.

Medieval prehistory involves vaguely prehistoric plant and animal life, or climate and environmental conditions, with [[KnightInShiningArmour knights]], [[BigFancyCastle castles]], and [[PrincessClassic princesses]] coexisting. Doesn't ''necessarily'' have to be set in [[MedievalEuropeanFantasy Medieval Europe]] or a FantasyCounterpartCulture to it, but it does have to involve a pre-industrial society, so AncientGrome and ancient UsefulNotes/{{Africa}} or even {{Mayincatec}} etc. are permitted. StonePunk, which usually involves a more modern-type society, is an entirely different trope.

Depending on the setting, this can potentially be anything from a [[ConstructedWorld fantasy world]] explicitly set in the Earth's real or fictional prehistory, with the prehistoric elements taking front and center, to a more conventional fantasy world with a few species of dinosaur and Ice Age megafauna added in among the usual fantasy creatures.

The precise role and prominence of the prehistoric elements can vary, but it typically varies between the primordial creatures being simply another part of the environment and their being rarer creatures restricted to isolated areas and remarkable in-universe as well as out. In the first case, they'll generally be treated as just more animals by local people, who will often have [[CallARabbitASmeerp a variety of common names for them]] and may have {{domesticated|Dinosaurs}} a few varieties.

Ice Age creatures and other Cenozoic megafauna are some of the most common creatures seen in this role, in large part because their similarities to modern animals make them easier to [[FantasticFaunaCounterpart insert in environments ultimately based on real-life ones]]. The fact that they're mostly associated with cold environments makes them particularly common sights in the GrimUpNorth; mammoths, in particular, [[MammothsMeanIceAge are a fairly common sight in frigid fantasy northlands]] and may be present even when no other prehistoric creatures are. Dinosaurs are rarer, but also see consistent use; they're less likely to just be something you might find in the woods, but expeditions to a {{Lost World}} or the depths of a distant jungle often stand a good chance of running into these creatures. Other prehistoric fauna, such as more obscure mammals and anything that lived before the dinosaurs, is used much more sporadically.

Subtrope of AnachronismStew. Often overlaps with AlternateHistory or HistoricalFantasy, usually based on the premise that the asteroid did not wipe out the dinosaurs or that somehow other wildlife managed to survive up until the medieval era or something involving TimeTravel. [[MisplacedWildlife Don't expect the wildlife to live in the areas they did in reality.]]

Related to DinosaursAreDragons and often overlaps with FantasyKitchenSink. Not to be confused with HollywoodPrehistory, which involves stereotypical stone-age "cavemen" living alongside creatures such as dinosaurs, or {{Prehistoria}}, its video game equivalent. Can contain elements of TheDarkTimes and TheTimeOfMyths, or AmbiguousTimePeriod, and DomesticatedDinosaurs.

See also LivingDinosaurs, for when dinosaurs survived all the way up to modern times.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Card Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'':
** Dominaria, the setting's original central world and a fairly traditional fantasy setting in most respects, is home to creatures such as [[https://scryfall.com/card/me2/188/woolly-mammoths woolly mammoths]] and [[https://scryfall.com/search?q=allosaurus&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name allosauruses]]. These were all especially common during a large in-setting ice age, but at least the allosaurs are still around.
** Ixalan is a continent where the {{Mayincatec}} locals coexist with dinosaurs, although the setting isn't technically "medieval" (Ixalan's plane is more of a "conquest of the New World" period, although it's not clear who's conquering who).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/Marvel1602'' has dinosaurs in the seventeenth-century America. Explained by Creator/NeilGaiman ([[WordOfGod though not in-story]]) as being because the [[LostWorld Savage Land]] is bigger in this version of the ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/ABalladOfTheDragonAndSheWolf'': Besides the canon examples of dire wolves and mammoths, mastodons are found on the Isle of Faces and Morna mentions there are Megaloceros-like elks Beyond the Wall.
* ''Fanfic/MyLittleChronoTriggersAreMagic'': The antagonists of 65,000,000 BC are a civilization of humans with medieval technology.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* ''WesternAnimation/EarlyMan'' pitches a Stone Age tribe against a Bronze Age society that has tamed mammoths and muskoxen among other things. Given that the dispute is resolved with a game of football (or soccer, if you're North American), it seems unlikely that accuracy was a major concern -- although there are a few clever little [[GeniusBonus jokes]] for those who do know their prehistory.
* ''WesternAnimation/FireAndIce1983'' sits on the border between this and a traditional HollywoodPrehistory setting, with [[TerrorDactyl pterosaurs]], giant lizards, and FrazettaMan mooks existing alongside castles, wizards and metal weapons. One scene sees the forces of TheGoodKingdom field an entire squadron of [[DomesticatedDinosaurs pterosaur-mounted]] flying cavalry.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/TenThousandBC'' has a pyramid-building culture using mammoths as beasts of burden.
* ''Film/TheThirteenthWarrior'' pitches Vikings against relict cavemen in 10th century Denmark, but their nature as relict Neanderthals is not as clear as in the sourcebook.
* ''Film/{{Aquaman|2018}}'' is set in modern-day, but is really an underwater fantasy epic. King Orm's mount is a ''Tylosaurus''.
* ''Film/AztecRex'' has the Conquistadors (Spanish explorers and soldiers) battling a pair of ''UsefulNotes/TyrannosaurusRex'' in a {{Mayincatec}} setting in the early 16th century.
* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'': Technically the story is set in the prehistoric past, but not ''that'' prehistoric, only about six thousand years ago.
** The movies have their share of this. The oliphaunts seem to have been influenced by ''Gomphotherium'', a prehistoric elephant with four tusks. The "great beasts" briefly seen pulling the giant battering ram at the Siege of Gondor are likewise modeled after ''Megacerops'', a large horned herbivore that resembled a rhinoceros but was more closely related to horses. Downplayed in the case of the Naz'gul's mounts, which resemble wyverns in the movies but come across as more [[TerrorDactyl pterodactyloid]] in the books.
** In ''Film/TheHobbitTheBattleOfTheFiveArmies'', Thranduil's mount is pretty clearly a ''Megaloceros'', a kind of large deer with colossal antlers that lived in Europe during the ice ages.
** If EpilepticTrees apply, people may also see the Eagles as ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpagornis Harpagornis]]'' (which actually lived into the Middle Ages, but in [[MisplacedWildlife New]] [[HilariousInHindsight Zealand]]), and the Wargs could pass for either ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyaenodon Hyaenodon]]'' or ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borophagus Borophagus]]'', before ''The Hobbit'' redesigned them to be more typically wolf-like.
* ''Film/SinbadAndTheEyeOfTheTiger'' becomes this trope by way of a LostWorld: Sinbad and his ArabianNightsDays crew make their way to Hyperborea, where they encounter a [[FrazettaMan proto-human Troglodyte]] and a [[PantheraAwesome sabre-tooth cat]].
* Technically [[SwordAndSandal classical]] rather than medieval, but ''Film/Hercules1958'' goes the DinosaursAreDragons route, with the Golden Fleece guarded by a dragon that looks like a Ceratosaurus and [[StockSoundEffects sounds like]] Franchise/{{Godzilla}}.
** The same "dragon" appears as StockFootage in the later ''Hercules the Invincible'', also known by the MarketBasedTitle ''[[DolledUpInstallment Son of Hercules]] in the Land of Darkness''.
* ''Film/TheJungleBook2016'' changes King Louie's [[AdaptationSpeciesChange species]] from an orangutan to a ''Gigantopithecus'' to get over the fact that orangutans [[MisplacedWildlife aren't native to India]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/{{Atlan}}'' places medieval European-style villages adjacent to prehistoric jungles crawling with dinosaurs.
* Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith wrote tales of TheTimeOfMyths set on the continent of "Hyperborea", which now lies under the ice of Greenland. Dinosaurs, prehistoric animals, and outright monsters all share the setting with a reasonably complex, castle-building human society.
* ''Literature/CodexAlera'': A few prehistoric creatures and the descendants thereof appear among the fauna that populates Carna, which is something of a dimensional sinkhole where people and creatures from many different worlds have become stranded over time.
** The wild creatures the Marat bind themselves to include gargants, which are implied to be giant ground sloths of some kind, and herdbanes, which are terror birds.
** [[KrakenAndLeviathan Leviathans]] are revealed to be gigantic descendants of Earth's plesiosaurs, which have evolved to become the dominant predators in the world's oceans.
%%* ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'' is set in a prehistoric medieval-like society. The Hyborian Age it takes place in is supposed to be [[TheTimeOfMyths Earth's distant past]], when the continents still had different shapes.%%Does this involve prehistoric creatures?
* ''Literature/DanceOfTheTiger'', by Finnish paleontologist Björn Kurtén, [[InvertedTrope inverts the trope]] by bringing elements from Medieval folklore to the Paleolithic, instead of Paleolithic animals to Medieval times. The {{handwave}} is, naturally, that this folklore originated from distant memories of the Paleolithic. In the story, set in Sweden as the ice recedes, the Sapiens call Neanderthals "trolls", and the villains are a couple of [[HalfHumanHybrid hybrid]] brother warlords known as the "[[ChangelingTale troll children]]" or "troll little devils". There is also a "troll" woman who managed to tame reindeer, but she is an oddball loner and the implication is that this knowledge will die with her, leaving Sapiens to rediscover it thousands of years later. Finally, the book takes the word ''schelch'' from the ''Literature/{{Nibelungenlied}}'' and uses it as the characters name for ''Megaloceros''. This is based on Kurtén's own speculation that the "schelch" in the poem was an actual reference to this animal.[[note]]The ''Nibelungelied'' says that Siegfried once hunted a ''Wisent'' (bison), an ''Elch'' (elk/moose), four ''Ure'' (aurochs), and a mysterious "single fierce ''Schelch''", which given the context must have been a megaungulate that is none of the other three.[[/note]]
* ''Literature/TheDinosaurLords'': This trope is the main premise of the work: several species of dinosaurs are used as [[HorseOfADifferentColor mounts]] and [[DomesticatedDinosaurs beasts of burden]] in a Medieval world, or just appear as wild animals.
* ''Literature/EatersOfTheDead'': The HighConcept of the story is that ''Literature/{{Beowulf}}'' was [[ATrueSToryInMyUniverse actually]] [[{{Demythification}} a fantasy]] [[ExternalRetcon retelling]] of a conflict between Vikings and relict Neanderthals (called "Wendol") in Medieval Denmark. The limits of Wendol territory are marked by massive bear skulls, implying the late survival of cave bears in the area as well.
* ''Literature/TheElenium'': A few times, the villains use time portals to make enemies from the prehistoric past attack the protagonists. These include a ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' and a horde of "dawn men" (the common ancestor of humans and trolls in this 'verse).
* The ''Literature/GarrettPI'' novels, gumshoe-style mysteries set in a fantasy-world city, count both dinosaurs (thunder lizards) and assorted Pleistocene mammals among their Verse's typical fauna.
* Creator/HarryTurtledove's extensive work in AlternateHistory includes several pieces where the premise, or one effect of the POD, is the survival of one or several prehistoric species into historical times:
** ''A Different Flesh'' takes place in a world where the Americas were colonized by more technologically impaired ''Homo erectus'' rather than ''Homo sapiens''. Besides the ''H. erectus'' themselves, several species of megafauna including "hairy elephants" (mammoths), "spearfang cats" (sabertoothed cats), ground sloths, and glyptodonts all survived to meet European colonists. The British even import Indian mahouts in the 18th century to tame the "hairy elephants" and use them as beasts of burden. The series was inspired by an essay by Stephen J. Gould, wondering what John Smith would have thought if he met ''Australopithecus'' in the Americas instead of modern humans.
** In ''The Green Buffalo'', a gang of 1891 Wyoming hunters (hired by a dinosaur paleontologist, no less) unwittingly wander into the Mesozoic through a ripple in time, then bag a ''Torosaurus'' that followed them back into the 19th century. [[spoiler:They remain oblivious the whole time and take the dinosaur for a diseased buffalo, hence the title.]]
** In ''Down in the Bottomlands'', the Zanclean Flood 5 million years ago never happened; as a result, the Mediterranean Sea doesn't exist and there is an extensive desert miles under sea level in its place, the titular Bottomlands. [[InSpiteOfANail Despite this distant point of departure]], both modern humans and Neanderthals still evolved, but Neanderthals survived and developed their own technologically advanced states in Europe while humans remained in Africa and southern Asia.
** ''The Maltese Elephant'' is a pastiche of ''Literature/TheMalteseFalcon'', except the {{mcguffin}} is a living, breathing Maltese dwarf elephant instead of a stone falcon. The elephants are said to have played a decisive role in the [[WeirdHistoricalWar Great Siege of 1565]].
** The ''Atlantis'' series has the premise that the eastern coast of North America broke off and drifted to the middle Atlantic during the Mesozoic, and as a result remained uninhabited by humans (or any other mammal) until Europeans discovered it in the 15th century. While the local flightless birds are fictional, they draw obvious inspiration from New Zealand's moas and Hawaii's moa-nalos. The largest species are driven to extinction in the 19th century.
** ''Running of the Bulls'' is another pastiche, this time of Creator/ErnestHemingway's ''Literature/TheSunAlsoRises''. Except the bulls are ''Triceratops''. And the final twist is that [[spoiler: the "human" characters are evolved dinosaurs and not actually human]].
** An example without alternate history involved is ''Household Gods'', where a modern Austrian woman is transported to Roman times and has the chance to witness a circus game where an aurochs is made to fight against a wolf pack. She sees the fact that the animal is extinct in her own time as an additional horror.
** Another fantasy example is ''Birdwitching'', which depicts a duel of witches magically summoning increasingly difficult birds. The rarer the bird, the bigger toll it takes on the summoner, and extinct birds are the toughest of all. In the end, a witch passes out from summoning an ''Archaeopteryx'' and is acclaimed as the undisputed winner.
* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Downplayed. The Drúedain west of Gondor differ greatly from the normal humans, and from the nonhuman races, and it has been suggested that they are actually Neanderthals.
* ''Literature/{{Lyonesse}}'' and its sequel ''Green Pearl'' take place in a pre-Migration Period world with fantasy elements and a vaguely medieval culture.
* ''Literature/NorthOfTheDragonlands'' by Creator/StephenDedman is a medieval fantasy in which the fantastic elements are unfamiliar non-magical things that the characters are trying to understand in terms of familiar concepts; the "dragons" are dinosaurs and pterosaurs that have somehow survived from prehistoric times.
* ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'': In this LowFantasy series, aurochs, a pre-historic breed of cattle, are used for labor in Calvaria.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** The series has mammoths and direwolves among the beasts living in the GrimUpNorth, aurochs in the main setting of Westeros, and dwarf elephants in Essos in the east.
** The "terrible walking lizards" mentioned by Syrio Forel, that kill their prey with hooked claws on their hind legs and are brought from Sothoryos to Braavosi menageries, sound a lot like dromaeosaurid dinosaurs ("raptors"). In the same dialogue, Forel claims to have seen other exotic animals, from more mundane (but still exotic to his audience) zebras and giraffes, to tigers that carry their young in pouches, and "mouse-pigs as big as cows".
** The mysterious [[ShroudedInMyth Coldhands]], who lives (or ''[[OurZombiesAreDifferent un]]''-lives) in the GrimUpNorth, is said to ride a "great elk". [[DependingOnTheArtist Most illustrators]] depict it as either an [[SeparatedByACommonLanguage American or European]] elk, but some have chosen to paint it as a ''[[https://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/3/3b/Zippo514_Coldhands.jpg Megaloceros]]''.
** The "giant elk" antlers over Mance Rayder's tent are likely ''Megaloceros'', with Jon even commenting that they belong to an extinct species (but recent enough to be identified by people from a glance). "Giant stags" are also said to have lived in the Riverlands in the past.
** The Ibbenese are heavily implied to be Neanderthals, albeit ones that eventually developed a civilization, took to the sea, and excelled at whaling. Interestingly, despite everyone noting their physical differences, nobody ever regards them as non-human.
** The Westerlands had its own species of lion, which only went extinct in recent memory. Given the generally temperate, European climate, they may be actually cave lions, or analogues of Holocene European lions rather than African.
** A species of dwarf elephant is used as a beast of burden and status symbol in Volantis.
* ''Literature/TheStoneDanceOfTheChameleon'' almost exclusively uses prehistoric flora and fauna in place of modern animals, and has them coexisting with a {{Mayincatec}} medieval society. [[DomesticatedDinosaurs Ceratopsids are used as pack animals]] or something akin to war elephants depending on the species, while various stripes of theropod [[HorseOfADifferentColor fill the niche horses fill in our society]]. At one point the protagonist sees some of the aforementioned war ceratopsians and notes that they are frequently called [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]] by commoners, but his father forbids him from using that word in reference to them, feeling that such superstitious language is low-class.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Mammoths and direwolves prowl beyond the Wall. Giants are also more Neanderthal-like in this version than the books' {{Bigfoot}}-like creatures, although they are still 4 meters tall.
* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': Entelodont-like creatures exist at the same time as the kingdoms of the Men, Elves, and Dwarves.
* ''Series/{{Primeval}}'' suggests that many mythical creatures were actually inspired by dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals ending up in historical times through time anomalies. It's specifically invoked with the ''Pristichampsus'' in the first episode of Season 3, which is suggested as being the true identity of Ammit from Egyptian mythology, and at the end, the team all throw out suggestions for other legendary creatures that could have come from anomalies. A more literal example happens later in the same season, when a ''Dracorex'' dinosaur has gone through an anomaly into Medieval England, is mistaken for a dragon, and goes through another anomaly to modern-day London with a KnightInShiningArmour intending to kill it in tow.
* ''Series/TheTerror'': The Tuunbag is loosely similar to an ''Arctodus'' short-faced bear in size and proportions. This is in contrast to the book where the Tuunbaq is an EldritchAbomination, and may have been inspired by claims of short-faced bear survival in the Arctic by cryptozoologists.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]
* Literature/TheBible has several references to Iron Age people living side by side with animals that a reader would have trouble imagining in modern-day Israel: oryx, addax, hartebeest, onager, lion, leopard, bear. Some, like the lion, survived there until the literal Middle Ages. Others even later. And then there are the weird cases:
** The ''re'em'' is a creature said to be untameable to anyone but God; it later morphed in Jewish folklore into a gigantic, mountain-sized animal with horns. It was translated as "{{unicorn}}" in the King James's Version, though some believe that the translator had a rhinoceros in mind when he used that word. Modern consensus is that the re'em is an aurochs, due to its etymological affinity with the Akkadian word ''rimu''.
** Literature/BookOfJob: The ''behemoth'' is a massive vegetarian animal, mentioned by God to Job as an example of His power. Most theologians note clear mammalian traits, including but not limited to a large nose and penis, and debate if it is a buffalo, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, or Syrian Elephant, a giant subspecies of Asian elephant larger than the extant forms.
** The ''leviathan'' is mentioned as a large serpentine sea creature that can breathe fire and has seven heads according to some verses. It is also mentioned with scales strong enough to not be penetrated by Bronze and Iron Age spears, and that Bronze and Iron is like straw and rotten wood to them. Some think that it is a Nile crocodile with the fire-breathing being a possible mistranslation and some of those weirder verses referring to the Devil.
* Literature/TheBookOfMormon mentions war horses and elephants in pre-Columbian North America. Believers claim either that they are late surviving American horses and mastodons that were tamed by people, or other American animals, like tapirs (which also went extinct in North America in prehistoric times, and now live in South America and Central America up to the Yucatan).
* Medieval folklore has the Woodwose or "Wild Man", an abstraction of what a man untouched by civilization would be. The Woodwose is bearded and naked, but has a hairy body like an animal, and lives in the deep woods. He has no tools except [[PrimitiveClubs a big wooden club]], which is probably why cavemen are often depicted with them in media, despite no archaeological evidence of prehistoric clubs being ever found. There are people who claim that such creatures were actually neanderthals or other extinct hominids who survived into more recent times.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcast]]
* ''Podcast/TwilightHistories'': The mini-episode "Beyond the Indus" takes place in a world where Alexander the Great continued to push into India. He and his army discover that the Indians have domesticated dinosaurs, who somehow survived the K-T Extinction and never spread elsewhere in the world. The dinosaurs are used as sources of food and beasts of burden.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Champions}}'': ''Fantasy Hero'' has multiple settings taking place in Earth's distant past.
** The ''Turakian Age'' is a StandardFantasySetting that takes place between 73,000 and 65,000 BC, ending with a war against a {{Lich}} that reshapes the world.
** The ''Valdorian Age'' follows the Turakian, and is a SwordAndSorcery setting modeled after ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'', where the gods have abandoned man, magic is dangerous, rare, and corrupting, and life and morality are cheap.
** The ''Atlantean Age'' is a HighFantasy setting focusing on {{Atlantis}} at the height of its power.
* ''TabletopGame/TheDarkEye'': Dere is for the most part a typical modern fantasy world, but its fauna includes such things as mammoths, mastodons, wooly rhinos, saber-toothed tigers, horned saurians (generic ceratopsians) and gorgers (scaly, cold-blooded giant theropods).
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' has stats for dinosaurs, dire wolves (among other "dire" beasts), woolly mammoths, terror birds (as [[CallARabbitASmeerp "axe beaks"]]), and megalodons, plus several others. Whether or not they're actually part of the setting depends on the campaign.
** This dates back to Gary Gygax's original ''TabletopGame/{{Greyhawk}}'' campaign from the 1970s (which was heavily altered prior to its commercial release in 1980). Since he didn't have time to run gaming sessions on an almost nightly basis ''and'' create a detailed fantasy world, he set his adventures in an alternate version of North America. [[WriteWhatYouKnow The Great Lakes region was a civilized area]] (the cities of Greyhawk and Dyvers were [[{{Expy}} expys]] of Chicago and Milwaukee, respectively), while the western part of the continent was considered a "land that time forgot" full of cavemen, dinosaurs, and other prehistoric creatures.
** The ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' setting has the Talenta Plains, where nomadic tribes of halflings travel on the backs of dinosaurs.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Mystara}}'': The Hollow World is home to several classical- or early medieval civilizations, existing alongside vast tracts of dinosaur-populated wilderness. Invoked, in a sense, as the Immortals (the gods of the setting) use the Hollow World as a place to preserve creatures and cultures that would have gone extinct in the outside world, and they've been at it for a ''long'' time.
** For all the traditional fantasy critters to be found in it, the original, AD&D 1st Edition ''Monster Manual'' had no {{sea serpents}}, as such. Under the "dinosaur" listing, it did have plesiosaurs, though, which are functionally nearly the same thing. No doubt a lot of homespun campaigns used them for precisely that purpose.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': A variety of dinosaurs and Cenozoic megafauna inhabits Creation alongside humans, elementals and weirder things. Among others, there are tyrant lizards (''Tyrannosaurus rex''), raptors ([[RaptorAttack originally featherless]], [[ShownTheirWork which was later corrected]]), ox-dragons (non-specific ceratopsids), siege lizards (''Stegosaurus''), sky titans (giant pterosaurs), mammoths and saber-toothed tigers in the far North, emperor sloths (megatheres) in the jungles of the East, ferocious hellboars (entelodonts), and predatory austrech (terror birds with clawed wings) that roam deserts and plains.
* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'': The bestiary in ''TabletopGame/{{Banestorm}}'' includes "bushwolves", "paladins", and "treetippers" -- from their descriptions and illustrations, they're evidently thylacines, glyptodonts, and giant ground sloths [[CallARabbitASmeerp by other names]]. "Striders" may be [[FeatheredFiend one of the many species of flightless predatory bird]] that appear from time to time in the fossil record.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'':
** Dinosaurs exist as powerful apex predators in the primeval Realm of the [[BarbarianHero Mammoth Lords]] and the trackless [[DarkestAfrica Mwangi Expanse]], as well as in the swamps and jungles of the LostWorld of Deep Tolguth, deep BeneathTheEarth. They serve as the most powerful animals to exist without magical backing.
** The game tends to describe {{Dire Beast}}s as larger, more powerful prehistoric versions of their smaller counterparts when possible. Dire apes, for instance, are ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus Gigantopithecus]]'', while dire bears are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_bear cave]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-faced_bear short-faced]] bears, dire hyenas are ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyaenodon Hyaenodon]]'', dire boars are ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daeodon Daeodon]]'', dire crocodiles are ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcosuchus Sarcosuchus]]'' and so on[[note]]This isn't always correct -- ''Hyaenodon'' had no particular relationship with hyenas, as it wasn't a true carnivoran, while ''Daeodon'' and its relatives were most closely related to whales and hippos[[/note]].
** "Megafauna" serves as a catch-all term for large, prehistoric animals that are neither dinosaurs nor dire versions of something else, and include the giant turtle ''Archelon'', the primitive whale ''Basilosaurus'', axe beaks (flightless predator birds such as phorusracids and ''Diatryma''), and a variety of large, prehistoric mammals -- including mammoths. Giant prehistoric fish, such as ''Dunkleosteus'', as well as trilobites and eurypterids/sea scorpions appear as well. Many of these creatures are found in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, the Mwangi Expanse, and Deep Tolguth alongside dinosaurs, but they're more likely to be encountered elsewhere in the world.
* ''TabletopGame/RuneQuest'': In addition to fantasy creatures such as trolls, elves and spirits, Glorantha is home to a variety of prehistoric beasts. Most are what we would consider Cenozoic megafauna, such as terror birds and "shovel-tuskers" (primitive proboscideans like ''Platybelodon''), but Mesozoic creatures such as tyrannosaurs are present as well.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'':
** The continent of Lustria is inhabited by dinosaurs and pterosaurs that are used as war mounts by the Lizardmen. The [[RaptorAttack Cold Ones]] are one such species that happen to also be employed by the Dark Elves.
** The far northern regions of the planet are home to woolly mammoths, some of which have been corrupted by Chaos and are trained for battle by the northern tribes.
** Among the mountain beasts that are found in the Ogre Kingdoms, Sabretusks are based on sabre-tooth cats, only with their prominent canines extending from their lower jaws, while the Rhinoxen resemble woolly rhinos or ''Elasmotherium'' with extra horns. Cave bears are also mentioned to inhabit the mountains, and the area is generally meant to resemble a particularly barbaric and savage take on the ice age.
** ''TabletopGame/ManOWar'' is a maritime spin-off that features megalodon as one of the many sea monsters lurking beneath the waves.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* The cancelled ''Powers Of Grayskull!'' prequel toyline to ''Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse'' would have had He-Man going back in time to an ancient Eternia inhabited by dinosaurs with guns attached to them in a SwordAndSorcery setting with wizards and kings.
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[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfConan'' has mammoths and woolly rhinos along with civilized humans. It takes place in [[TimeOfMyths the Hyborian Age]].
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII'' has a downplayed example in the form of dire wolves available in the scenario editor.
* The spinoff ''VideoGame/AgeOfMythology'' foregoes the grounded historical setting of its parent franchise in favour of TimeOfMyths and has a few myth units inspired by prehistoric life:
** The Greek hydra and scylla respectively resemble [[DinosaursAreDragons a sauropod and a plesiosaur]] but with the ability to grow extra heads with each kill.
** The Egyptian leviathan resembles a Devonian placoderm like ''Dunkleosteus''.
** The Atlantean behemoth is given the scientific name ''Glyptodon coelodontu'', referencing the true ''Glyptodon'' (which it superficially resembles) as well as the woolly rhino "Coelodonta". It also has a pair of mastodon-like tusks.
** On the more mundane end of the spectrum there are aurochs in northern maps (which actually lived in Europe through the Ancient and Medieval period), and a domesticated muskox caravan unit for the Norse, despite muskoxen becoming extinct in Scandinavia around 9,000 years ago. A wild muskox unit was also planned at one point but was left unfinished, likely to be featured in tundra maps instead of the [[MisplacedWildlife misplaced]] aurochs. Some fan mods take it up a notch and add mammoths edited from the game's elephants.
* ''Videogame/ConanExiles'' also has mammoths (more realistic-looking this time unlike the [[FollowTheLeader Mûmakil-like]] version in ''Age of Conan'') in the north, in addition to sabertooths and dire wolves. The aggressive "[[FeatheredFiend jungle birds]]" are either oversized shoebills or terror birds.
* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'':
** One area added to the DS version is a hidden village of pacifist Reptites, who not only survived Lavos' crash and the subsequent multi-million-year winter, they survived until at least the Middle Ages, the other time period you can find them in.
** The prehistoric era is home to the Tyranno and Reptite Lairs, vast sprawling castles that wouldn't look out of place in the game's medieval period.
* ''Dinolords'' is a realtime strategy about defending a historic English village from invading Danes that use dinosaurs as mounts.
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' has sabre-toothed cats, cave bears, and mammoths, as well as humans/cat people/lizard people/elves with a culture/tech level equivalent to the late Roman Empire with clear influence from medieval history and Norse mythology.
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' has dabbled in this here and there. The fire-breathing Dodongos are [[DinosaursAreDragons sometimes referred to as dinosaurs]], although later games have leaned more into the FierySalamander trope for them; similarly, the Helmasaur enemies and their boss variants tend to resemble squat, ''Protoceratops''-like dinosaurs. There's also a [[EliteMooks stronger variant]] of the [[LizardFolk Lizalfos]] enemy called a Dinolfos in a few games. Finally, ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' has a species of woolly rhino (called Great-Horned Rhinoceros) living in the icy north.
* ''VideoGame/{{Paraworld}}'' has a trio of [[ScienceHero heroic scientists]] go on an expedition to another dimension where electricity is impossible to generate and humans similar to the Vikings, the Far East and Northern Africa co-exist with dinosaurs while using a mish-mash of {{steampunk}}, medieval and ClockPunk technology. And yeah these scientists later learn that those extinct dinosaurs on Earth are actually lost migrants from this other dimension, and not the other way around.
* Despite ''VideoGame/SonicAndTheSecretRings'' being mainly an ArabianNightsDays setting, Sonic visits a jungle inhabited by dinosaurs and pterosaurs.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' is a FantasyKitchenSink setting with many medieval and Tolkienesque elements. Many creatures resemble or are directly based on prehistoric animals: there are raptors, sabretooth cats, woolly rhinos, and mammoths; the kodo beast resembles a brontothere and the plainstrider look like a terror bird. Also, there is Un'Goro crater, a LostWorld filled with pterosaurs, stegosaurs, and Devilsaurs (which are, essentially, ''UsefulNotes/TyrannosaurusRex'').
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[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'': The raptor-riding banditos deliberately {{invoke|dTrope}} this. They were paleontologists who discovered actual living ''Velociraptor'', and after their leader's girlfriend dumped him for a man with incredible abs, they dressed up as banditos and took to riding the raptors, sustaining themselves by robbing people as they made their way to Cumberland to kill the ab man who stole Pedro's girlfriend, [[RefugeInAudacity just because]] [[CassandraGambit no one would believe that]]. Their youngest member Gordito, who becomes the titular doctor's sidekick, points out that it really isn't so strange in [[QuirkyTown Cumberland]], where the local doctor is a ninja, his receptionist is a gorilla, the supermarket is run by a HulkMashUp that looks like a fantasy ogre and is the son of [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Dr.]] [[Creator/StephenHawking Birding]], and the mayor is a [[spoiler: time traveler whose AlternateSelf is both the king of a dimension that runs on RuleOfCool and the local mafia boss]].
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': The Empire of Blood makes extensive use of domesticated dinosaurs as [[HorseOfADifferentColor mounts]], beasts of burden, and [[BeastOfBattle war animals]]. Specifically, ''Allosaurus'', ''Pteranodon'' and ''Brontosaurus''[[note]] when Elan remarks that ''Brontosaurus'' is technically the body of one dinosaur with the head of another (whether in the real world this is the case or they were actually a separate genus is disputed), Tarquin says that hippogriffs are hardly less chimerical, but he still has several armed divisions mounted on them[[/note]] are all seen at various points.
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[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''The Yorkshire Mammoth'', by Creator/HarryTurtledove, is an essay written in the style of a Creator/JamesHerriot story but set in a world where woolly mammoths survived to become farm animals in northern Great Britain. Several other glacial megafauna are mentioned to have survived until the Roman, Norman, or Elizabethan times.
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/ConanTheAdventurer'': In one episode, Zula uses his taming ritual on a woolly mammoth herd. Interestingly they are not treated differently from other wild animals in the series (other than being called powerful) and averting MammothsMeanIceAge, they don't appear in a snowy environment.
%%* ''WesternAnimation/MightyMagiswords'': The Dinosaur Kingdom.%%
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': Parodied in "[[Recap/PhineasAndFerbExcaliferb Excaliferb]]" when Phineas rides on the giant cursorial owl ''Ornimegalonyx'' and a ''Pteranodon'' is seen amongst the ten thousand monsters.
* ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'': Lampshaded in "[[Recap/LoveDeathAndRobotsIceAge Ice Age]]" when Gail points out how strange it is that they investigated a frozen mammoth from their freezer and discovered a tiny medieval city. However, this is soon explained as they witness society continue to advance incredibly quickly.
* ''WesternAnimation/Primal2019'': While the first season is a HollywoodPrehistory setting with some supernatural elements, the second season is this trope, with {{Fantasy Counterpart Culture}}s to Celts, Vikings, Egyptians, and Babylonians interacting with the Neanderthal protagonist, his ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' companion, and other prehistoric beasts.
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