MythicThunderbird, giant supernatural bird
UBFandors, giant passenger birds (last died ~30,000 years ago)
Fandors, giant passenger birds (last died ~30,000 years ago) = Thunderbird, giant supernatural bird
The Connection
The red race migrated from Asia to the Americas via the Bering land bridge. If fandors were still alive during or near this migration period, memories of giant birds could have been carried into the Americas and preserved as Thunderbird traditions over tens of thousands of years of oral retelling.
UB Citation
Academic Source
Leeming, The World of Myth (1990); oral tradition studies
Historical Evidence(Strong evidence)
Argentavis magnificens and the Teratornithidae family: giant birds with 12-18 foot wingspans that existed in the Americas from the Late Oligocene to the Late Pleistocene. U.S. National Park Service confirms their existence. "These northern teratorns encountered humans at the end of the Pleistocene, roughly 11,000 years ago" and "probably influenced the various Thunderbird myths of the Native Americans." Real giant birds existed, humans saw them, and the memory persisted as mythology. Additionally, Pillar 43 at Gobekli Tepe (c. 9600 BCE, southeastern Turkey) prominently features a large bird figure holding a disc, one of humanity's oldest monumental carvings, predating Sumerian civilization by ~5,000 years. The giant bird motif appears across cultures from Mesopotamia to the Americas.