"Ancient Giants"

One of my favorite quotes from Lewis Binford is from his 1990 paper titled "Mobility, Housing, and Environment" (Journal of Anthropological Research 46(2): 139):

"Correlations are not necessarily causally indicative; they are clues to the operation of systemic phenomena in the world. They are what needs explanation-they are not explanations in and of themselves."

This quote touches on why I am interested in the phenomenon of "ancient giants," especially those reported from the Eastern Woodlands.  There are hundreds of accounts of "giant" skeletons being disinterred in eastern North America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Most of these accounts were printed in newspapers and there are many striking similarities in how these remains were described.  The quantity and obvious patterning in these accounts are being presented as evidence of their essential accuracy in a 21st century renaissance of the "ancient giants" phenomenon. This renaissance is tied into, among other things, religious fundamentalism (the idea that the existence of giants would prove the Bible to be literally "true" while demonstrating evolutionary theory to be "false"), a re-emergence of the Mound Builder Myth, anti-government conspiracy theories, and the paranormal.

Modern giant enthusiasts are very fond of collecting newspaper clippings and asserting that they can't all possible be wrong.  They are correct that many accounts exist and there are patterned similarities among them.  In my opinion, those patterns are "clues to the operation of systemic phenomena in the world."  We have a historic phenomenon that has spatial and temporal dimensions and utilizes a common vocabulary: there is something going on here, and the "giant phenomenon" deserves an explanation and an interpretation.  What the giant enthusiasts are missing in simply asserting that the accounts exist therefore giants existed, however, is any appreciation for the historical, political, cultural, and scientific contexts of those original accounts.  I am interested in supplying that, and showing that a thoughtful, evidence-based analysis of the information can be done using many of the same sources that the modern giantologists rely on.

A picture of me with mannequins of Martin and Anna Bates in the museum in Seville, Ohio. I'm the one in the middle.

I find this a fascinating topic because of the complex interplay between history, culture, language, politics, and science that provide the contexts for both the "original" giants phenomenon and it's current renaissance. Although I have been interested in the "giants" phenomenon for some time, I have only recently begun to seriously address it.  I was spurred forward by the airing of the program Search for the Lost Giants which I found, in a word, ridiculous.  I had been working on understanding the "double rows of teeth" aspect of the giants phenomenon and was planning on writing a paper on the topic.  After seeing Search for the Lost Giants, I re-considered who my target audience should be for this kind of work (see this post on the importance of archaeologists addressing "fringe" notions of prehistory) and how I might best communicate to that audience.  I decided I would be better off writing a series of blog posts than a paper or two that would be hidden behind a journal pay wall. I started with this post on "double rows of teeth" in late November of 2014, and spent some time over my break between semesters writing on a variety of other topics related to "ancient giants."  Presenting a reasoned response to the many claims about "giants" in prehistory is one of my motivations.  The Eastern Woodlands is my archaeological research home, and I'm not going to let it get hijacked by the unsupported claims put forward by many of the giant enthusiasts.

My other motivation is research-oriented.  I do not doubt for a second that tall people existed in prehistory just as they exist today.  And I don't doubt that those tall people were treated differently in prehistory just as they are today.  I grew up just down the road from Seville, Ohio, and was raised with the history/mythology of 7'9" Martin Bates and his 7'5" wife Anna Swan Bates. They couldn't get on a train without it getting written up in the papers.  I think it would be great to be able to actually study the role of exceptional stature in the prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands.  The current silly state of "research" on "giants" makes that difficult.  Getting to a place where one could actually systematically analyze the roles of real physical differences in size/stature among individuals will require, at least in part, understanding and evaluating those old accounts of "giants." 

There is probably a book in all of this, but for now I'll stick with the blog posts on "giants."  I'll add them to the listing here and also post them on the Modern Mythology of Giants page on Facebook.

This is a chronological listing (most recent first):

• Tooth Size, Body Size, and Giants: An Analytical Issue that has Persisted for Eight Decades (12/12/2015). Do large teeth mean giant bodies?
  
• There Are No Known Postcranial Remains of Gigantopithecus (12/6/2015).  Reconstructions of Gigantopithecus rely completely on inferences drawn from fossil teeth and a handful of fragmentary mandibles.
• "Mistakes Were Made" Regarding Antediluvian Giants, Says 19th Century Anatomist (12/2/2015). If you think you can assume the interpretations of early anatomists were accurate, think again.
  
• Joe Taylor's Amazing 47" Femur Sculpture: Has the Story Changed Again? (12/2/2015). If the first story doesn't stick, try another one.
• The Missing Link: George McCready Price, Degeneration, and the Deluge Geology Society (11/28/2015). More work tracing how Seventh-Day Adventist ideas about Antediluvian humans jump the tracks into other brands of Christianity.
• Kent Hovind's Adventist Background (Literally) (11/27/2015). Kent Hovind uses a prophecy chart inspired by Seventh-Day Adventists. 
• Young Earth Creationism, Degeneration, and Bible Giants: 1950's Style (11/25/2015). A 1950's article that makes explicit the connection between proving the existence of giants and disproving the theory of evolution.
  
• I Spent $20 to Find Out that Jim Vieira and Hugh Newman Have Learned Nothing About "Double Rows of Teeth" Over the Past Year (11/24/2015). What did our favorite advocates of "double rows of teeth" learn during a year of research?  Short answer: nothing.
• Bible Dictionaries and Augustin Calmet's Thoughts on the First Men (10/4/2015).  Working to track ideas about "degeneration" back in time.
• Giant-Crazy RN Warns that Vaccines Could Make You Less Human (9/26/2015).  If you thought Ben Carson's stance on vaccines was lame, wait until you read the opinion of this licensed medical professional.
• Ellen G. White, Degeneracy, and the Antediluvian World (9/25/2015).  Some late-19th century writings from the founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, relevant to understanding the development of the idea that Adam and the patriarchs were giants compared to modern humans. 
• Hypothesis: Ben Carson Believes in Giants (9/14/2015).  Based on some comments made during a presentation about his Creationist beliefs, I hypothesize that Ben Carson believes in giants.
• Young Earth Creationisms and the Doctrine of Degeneracy with Kent Hovind (9/13/2015).  In an otherwise boring interview, Kent Hovind explains the idea that humans used to be "bigger, better, smarter" closer to the time of Creation.
• "Giants" and Typologies of Race: The Example of Dinaric Skulls (6/9/2015).  Who still likes Nazi-era racial typologies?  Giantologists!
• Six Fingers AND "Double Rows of Teeth"? Show Me (5/28/2015).  Are there ANY examples of accounts of "giants" with both polydactyly and "double rows of teeth," as so many websites assert?  I haven't found a single one.
• Confused About Giants-Based Christianity? Ask an 11th Grader (5/25/2015).  A student paper posted on a creationist website pretty much sums up the components of a giants-based Christianity.
• The "Giants of Olden Times" Stories in 19th Century America: A Progress Report  (5/22/2015).  An initial quantitative analysis of the "Giants of Olden Times" stories.
• Did a Yale Professor's Plagiarized Lecture Fuel the "Giant" Craze in 19th Century America? (5/19/2015).  The beginning of my attempt to understand the origin of the "Giants of Olden Times" stories that swept through the American press in the late 19th century.
• Jason Colavito's Recent Posts on European "Giants" (5/18/2015).  Links to some interesting recent posts by Jason Colavito.
• More Retractions from the 1885 Hoax of a Buried City Under Moberly, Missouri (5/16/2015).  A follow-up to the hoax about a buried city in Missouri.  There are more retractions to look at, but I'm sure that won't dampen the enthusiasm for mounting an expedition to this fantastic place.
• Bigfoot Researchers Still Insist Native American Skull is Not Human (5/10/2015).  More discussion of the Humboldt skull, addressing the contention by Bigfoot researchers that it has a shape and features that mean it can't be human.  Those assertions are nonsense.
• Lovelock Cave and the Illusion of "A Jawbone That Slips Over That of a Large Man" (5/8/2015).  Despite repeated assertions to the contrary by every fringe theorist from David Hatcher Childress on down the food chain, the skulls that were kept in the Humboldt Museum were those of normal-sized humans.
• When To Break Off the Engagement (5/6/2015).  A treasure hunter and a fringe theorist coming together to support the endangerment of irreplaceable cultural resources and burial grounds for their own immediate monetary gain? Shocking.
• Steve Quayle Says Evil Giants Turned Humans Gay (5/4/2015).  The world's "leading authority on giants" says that Celtic giants taught humans how to be homosexual.  Quayle's statement is based on a  misinterpreted of the account of the Celts/Gauls written by Greek historian Diodorus.
• The Remains of Little Crow (4/28/2015).  Another possible case where the root sockets of maxillary molars were mistaken for double rows of teeth.  Also a case of Native American remains being treated disgracefully.
• ATTENTION GIANT ENTHUSIASTS: Bigfoot Researchers Are Stealing Your "Evidence" (4/27/2015).  A Bigfoot research claimed to have identified "double rows of teeth" in a skull from Humboldt Sink Flats, Nevada.  He mistook the normal sockets of three-rooted maxillary molar for evidence that two rows of teeth had been present.
• Who Built the Megalithic Monuments of Nartiang? (4/26/2015).  A brief discussion of a megalithic site in India.
• "Double Rows of Teeth" in Historical Perspective (4/21/2015).  A basic historical analysis of the use of the phrase "double rows of teeth" in newspapers.  The meaning has changed through time. It's relationship to "giant skeletons" appears to be largely coincidental.
• Normal-Sized People Can Move Big Rocks: The Example of the Toraja  (4/18/2015).  Another example of a "living" tradition of megalithic monument building in Indonesia.
• The "Giants' Teeth" from Sardinia (4/5/2015).  The only physical evidence of "giants" in Sardinia seems to be an assortment of teeth, some of which are certainly from animals and the remainder of which are probably from animals.
• Was the "Buried City" Under Moberly, Missouri, an April Fool's Joke? (4/1/2015). A fantastical 1885 newspaper story was a hoax. It's still being dragged up and rehashed by giant enthusiasts today.
• More on the 1915 Photographs of a Megalithic Stone Pulling in Nias, Indonesia  (3/28/2015).  A follow-up on the Nias photos.
• Normal-Sized People Can Move Big Rocks:  A Quick Note on the Megalithic Traditions of Nias, Indonesia (3/28/2015).  Some great early 20th century photos of a stone pulling in Indonesia.
  
• Cotton Mather: America's First Nephilim Enthusiast (Feburary 26, 2015).  Cotton Mather's writings contain several core points in common with modern Nephilim enthusiasts.
• The Helenwood Devil Fan Club: And Then There Was One (March 27, 2015).  One of the Helenwood Devil's supporters withdraws, leaving only the GAWM and someone who thinks it was a petrified pterosaur.
• What Do Giant Enthusiasts Do When the Truth Turns Out To Be Inconvenient?  Nothing, Apparently. (March 24, 2015). Neither of the two giant enthusiasts who have featured the Helenwood Devil changed their webpages after I pointed out to them that it was made of clay.
  
• "Giantologists: There's One Born Every Minute" or "The Helenwood Devil: An Obvious Fraud" (March 22, 2015).  A 1921 story about a "horned giant" from Tennessee is the focal point of another fantastic story; basic fact checking quickly shows it to be a known hoax (and a pretty bad sculpture).
• Two More Clues as to What Passes for "Evidence" and "Research" in the Land of Giantology (March 22, 2015). A quick post about a Photoshopped picture and a spat over what "research" is.
• My Theory of Normal-Sized Pharaohs but Super Small Everyone Else (March 17, 2015).  Ramesses II is often depicted as being much larger than those around him.  Because his mummy is in the Cairo Museum, however, we know he was only 5'7".  So, either relative size was a way to symbolize relative status, or everyone else in the Egyptian world must have been super small.
• Interview about Giants with Sara Head and Ken Feder (March 17, 2015). Sara Head and Ken Feder interviewed me for the their podcast.
• My Relationship With Giants:  A Progress Report (March 17, 2015).  An update on my efforts to provide a counter-point: this website is now the first result returned by a Google search for "double rows of teeth."
• My Great-Great-Grandparents Dug Up An Antediluvian Giant, But All I Got Was This Lousy Mastodon Tooth (March 13, 2015). A t-shirt design that captures changes in the frameworks we use to interpret remains from the past.
• Giants: You Never Know What You'll Stumble Across Next (March 12, 2015).  For your listening pleasure, a great song by the band Rasputina.
• Normal-Sized People Can Move Big Rocks: The Example of Sumba (March 10, 2015). Another ethnographic example, this time from Indonesia, of how non-state societies use massive amounts of person power to move large stones (some reportedly up to 70 tonnes).
• Video of Naga Stone-Pulling Ceremonies (March 7, 2015). Links to some video clips on YouTube of the Naga pulling stones (following this post).
• Antediluvian Air Pressure: An 1831 Letter Explaining Mastodons and Giants (March 6, 2015). An early 19th century attempt to accommodate biblical accounts of giants with accumulating evidence of the fossils of extinct megafauna.  And the discovery of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.
• Normal-Sized People Can Move Big Rocks: The Example of the Angami Naga (March 5, 2015).  Yes, Virginia, normal-sized people with ropes and rollers can move big rocks. Here's one ethnographic example.
• A Case of Gigantism from Ancient Rome (February 21, 2015).  An article about a skeleton from Rome that was interpreted as that of an individual who suffered from pituitary gigantism.
• Why Are There So Few Giants in the Book of Mormon? (February 17, 2015).  Giants are largely absent from the Book of Mormon.  Nephilim enthusiasts say that's because the Nephites themselves were related to the Nephilim, or that Book of Mormon was inspired by a fallen angel.
• Mastodons, "Mound Builders," and the Willful Flattening of Time  (February 14, 2015). Two instances (one from the 19th century and one from today) where mastodons and "Mound Builders" are put together in time.  One of them involves giants. Guess which one.
• All You Need to Know to Become a Giantologist (February 7, 2015).  In a video interview, we are told that all you need to do to become a giantologist is search old newspapers for the phrase "giant human skeletons."  The question of why giantologists are not taken seriously is left unanswered . . . or is it?
• Creation, Corruption, and Salvation: Are Giants People Too? (February 6, 2015).  I think you can attribute much of the current resurgence in the popularity of giants to an interest in the Nephilim.  A few vague passages in the Old Testament are being mixed with information from a variety of extra-biblical sources (apocrypha, New Age spiritualism, ancient alien theories, occult teachings) to create a modern mythology of giants that includes the notion that matings between fallen angels and humans are corrupting the human bloodline to this day.  The implications of some of the rhetoric of Nephilim enthusiasts is troubling.
• NEWS FLASH: I've Been Kicked Off the "REAL GIANTS" Facebook Page (January 28, 2015). My idea was that a great way to learn about why people believe in giants would be to ask them.  During the brief time I was permitted to post on the "REAL GIANTS" page, I learned that people who believe in giants do not like having their beliefs questioned.
• An Interesting Passage from 1842 about the Evidence for Biblical Giants (January 26, 2015).  I stumbled across an interesting passage by a writer named Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx, who was attempting to examine Genesis with "no preconceived theory."  Writing before Darwin and before the Smithsonian, he concluded that the evidence for giants was weak to nonexistent.
• Evolution, "Devolution," and the Incredible Shrinking of Humanity: Why Creationists Love Giants (January 23, 2015). Creationists are actually evolutionists but not scientists.  They love giants because the existence of large humans in the past would resonate with their own evolutionary theory about the natural mechansims and patterns of change through time.
• Joe Taylor's Sculpture of a 47" Femur: What's the Story? (January 20, 2015).  Spoiler alert: there is no story. My new frontrunner for least credible story with greatest internet presence. They can't even be consistent on the country of origin or the decade of the supposed "find."
• Your Daily Double Row of Teeth: G. Creighton Webb (1854-1948) (January 18, 2015). A challenge for the giantologists to explain their ideas about "double rows of teeth." At last check, there were no takers. So sad.
• Your Daily Double Row of Teeth: Roxie Stinson (January 17, 2015).  Roxie Stinson's "double row of teeth" were noted during her Senate testimony during the Teapot Dome Scandal hearing.
• Your Daily Double Row of Teeth: Jack Johnson (1878-1946) (January 16, 2015).  Boxer Jack Johnson also had a "double row of teeth."
• Your Daily Double Row of Teeth: Cecil Lean (1878-1935) (January 15, 2015).  I think I've made the case that this phrase was not exclusively used to describe the dentitions of large skeletons.  But why not keep providing many many examples?  That seems to be the M.O. of the giantologist community, and they got a TV show. Maybe it will work for me.
• Take a Wild Guess What You Could Purchase in 1907? (January 14, 2015). An upper/lower set of dentures advertised for sale as a "double row of teeth."  Indeed there are two rows: an upper row and a lower row.
• An Ancient Giant Speaks: Nephilim Actress Helen Lowell's Voice Captured on Film (January 14, 2015).  Film/stage actress Helen Lowell was also described as having a "double row of teeth," suggesting perhaps that the correspondence between this phrase and "lost race of giants" is not as strong as the giantologists would have us believe.
• NEWS FLASH:  Teddy Roosevelt was a Nephilim Giant with a Double Row of Teeth (January 13, 2015). The 26th President of the United States was also described as having a "double row of teeth."  His teeth were so famous you could buy your own set of "Teddy Teeth."
• Four Individuals with a "Double Row of Teeth" to add to your Giant Nephilim File (January 10, 2015). The term "double rows of teeth" often doesn't mean what the giantologists assume it does. This is a brief opening discussion of the topic with a few examples, including Millard Fillmore's daughter.
• Gregory Little's Book "Path of Souls:" Some Preliminary Thoughts (January 9, 2015).  I found something to like in the book: an attempt at analysis and a potentially falsifiable conclusion.
• An Eyewitness to a Giant? Additional Information on the Conewango Mound (January 6, 2015).  A short follow-up to the previous post.  Apparently some versions of "Ancient Monuments in Western New York" had no text, perhaps explaining some of the confusion about the earlier date of the excavation.
• An Eyewitness to a Giant? Not so Fast, Zimmerman and Vieira (January 1, 2015). A closer look at the story that Charles Huntington saw a 9' giant skeleton being unearthed in 1876 in New York.  It doesn't hold up.
• $502 Reward for Photographs of Lost Giants: The Skeletons from Delavan, Wisconsin (December 23, 2014).  The 1912 reports of "strange" skeletons from Delavan were written in the context of the search for fossil human ancestors.
• A Note to Giantologists: "Double Teeth All Around" is Not the Same Thing as "Double Rows of Teeth" (December 21, 2014).  Further elaboration on what the phrase "double teeth all around" actually meant (it described a pattern of tooth wear, not actual double rows of teeth).
  
• How About "Three Rows of Teeth"?  A Closer Look at the Description of Skeletons from Amelia Island, Florida (December 20, 2014). I was challenged to explain a report of a skull with "three rows of teeth."  It was simple to explain, and didn't have three rows of teeth.
• "Giant" Humbugs, Past and Present (December 18, 2014): Yes, some "giants" were actually intentional hoaxes (if you don't believe me, ask P. T. Barnum).  Hoaxing and hucksterism is alive and well today.
• Mastodon to Man: An 1845 "Giant" from Tennessee (December 17, 2014).  The great story of a mastodon skeleton that was misinterpreted as a giant human, and displayed as such until recognized for what it was.
• More Misinterpretations: "Giants with Double Rows of Teeth" from Ohio (December 16, 2014).  The Ohio accounts of skeletons with "double rows of teeth" in Ross Hamilton's book are actually describing worn teeth using the phase "double teeth all around."
• Words Matter: "Double Rows of Teeth," Jim Vieira, and the Deerfield Skeleton (December 14, 2014).  The skeleton from Deerfield that set Jim Vieira off on his quest to find giants with double rows of teeth actually didn't have "double rows of teeth," but "double teeth all around" (highly worn teeth).
• Here's an Easy One: A Giant with "Double Teeth All Around" from Northern New Mexico (December 13, 2014).  Another example of a normal-sized individual with normal teeth.
• The "Giant Skeletons" from Ellensburg, Washingon: A Closer Look (December 9, 2014).  A closer look at the accounts that are a favorite among giant enthusiasts.
• The Modern Mythology of Giants: Why is it so Hard to Tell the Truth? (Part 2) (December 1, 2014).  Terje Dahl's response to my question about why an animal tooth was misrepresented as a Denisovan tooth on Search for the Lost Giants: "The producers did it."
• The Modern Mythology of Giants: Why is it so Hard to Tell the Truth? (November 30, 2014).  The program Search for the Lost Giants misrepresented an animal tooth as a "replica" of a large human tooth from Denisova Cave.
• The Modern Mythology of Giants: "Double Rows of Teeth" (November 28, 2014).  An opening discussion of the historical linguistics of terms/phrases such as "double teeth," "double teeth all around," and "double rows of teeth," none of which actually was intended to indicate the presence of multiple, concentric rows of teeth.

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