Histórico do blog

$502 Reward for Photographs of Lost Giants: The Skeletons from Delavan, Wisconsin

12/23/2014

Delavan, Wisconsin: not home to giant Nephilim skeletons.

Talk show host and giant Nephilim enthusiast L. A. Marzulli has offered a $500 reward for a photograph from the 1911 excavations at Delevan, Wisconsin. The article on Marzulli’s blog states:

The Delavan skeletons’ purported sizes, ranging from seven to nine feet tall, with abnormally large skulls, are consistent with other skeletal remains which Marzulli said fit the Nephilim profile.

Locating photographs, notes, maps, and other documentation related to an old excavation is a worthy endeavor that I fully support. I’ve spent time myself trying to piece together whatever information I could to aid in interpreting and understanding past work at sites like Clark’s Point in the Falls region of the Ohio Valley and some 1960s Late Woodland mortuary sites in southern Indiana. A single map or photograph can sometimes have a great impact on one’s ability to construct some framework for understanding the material remains from unpublished or under-published archaeological investigations.

So I think some new evidence about the Delevan skeletons would be a wonderful thing, and I would like to put some cash on the line as well. While Marzulli’s $500 reward for a photograph is not something I can match (I don’t have talk show host money, just Visiting Assistant Professor money), I decided I could chip in something to help the cause. At first I committed to a dollar, but as I did some research on the Delavan accounts and became more and more interested in helping to solve this “mystery,” I decided to double my contribution. Together with Marzulli’s $500, my two bucks will bring the total reward for a Delavan photograph to $502. If that doesn’t push the gas pedal down to the floor, I don’t know what will.

But I have very different expectations than Marzulli about what those photographs, if they exist, will show. SPOILER ALERT: there was nothing giant, mysterious, or particularly unusual about the skeletons either from 1911 or 1912. The 1911 stories that I have seen contain no information that suggests anything but Native American remains disinterred from a mound. The 1912 stories about Delavan, which emphasized a suite of strange cranial features, were composed and spread in the context of the ongoing search for the “missing link” between apes and humans that was the focus of the accelerating study of human evolution. This historical context explains the particular language and claims about the characteristics of the 1912 skeletons that we see in the stories, as well as the headlines.

Let’s look at the accounts.

The Delavan Accounts

Those familiar with the modern mythology of giants have heard of Delevan before: the accounts from Delavan are a staple among those making a claim that a “race” of giants existed in prehistoric North America. A Google search for “Delevan skeletons” returns several pages of websites that have posted, transcribed, or paraphrased an article in the New York Times from May 4, 1912, with the headline “Strange Skeletons Found:”

STRANGE SKELETONS FOUND.
__
Indications That Tribe Hitherto Unknown Once Lived in Wisconsin.
Special to the New York Times.

    MADISON, Wis., May 3.—The discovery of several skeletons of human beings while excavating a mound at Lake Delavan indicates that a heretofore unknown race of men once inhabited Southern Wisconsin. Information of the discovery was brought to Madison to-day by Maurice Morrissey, of Delavan, who came here to attend a meeting of the Republican State Central committee. Curator Charles E. Brown of the State Historical Museum will investigate the discoveries within a few days.
    Upon opening one large mound at Lake Lawn farm, eighteen skeletons were discovered by the Phillips Brothers. The heads, presumably those of men, are much larger than the head of any race which inhabit America to-day. From directly over the eye sockets, the head slopes straight back and the nasal bones protrude far above the cheek bones. The jaw bones are long and pointed, bearing a minute resemblance to the head of the monkey. The teeth in the front of the jaw are regular molars.
    There were also found in the mounds the skeletons, presumably of women, which had smaller heads, but were similar in facial characteristics. The skeletons were embedded in charcoal and covered over with layers of baked clay to shed water from the sepulcher.

Similar stories ran in a number of other newspapers during the spring of 1912. I have transcribed the ones that I’ve located (available here as a pdf). They all say pretty much the same thing in terms of the description of the skeletons: large skulls, sloping foreheads, protruding nasal bones, and jaws like a monkey or an ape. The descriptions that mention the teeth say the front teeth are “regular molars.”   Many of the headlines emphasize the “strangeness” of the remains and use phrases like “unknown race.” Two of the accounts actually specify that the skulls were unusually small rather than unusually large.

The 1912 excavations appear to have been conducted in a different mound from the 1911 excavations. I only found one account of the 1911 excavations (Belvidere Daily Republican, April 12, 1911):

FIND INDIAN RELICS NEAR LAKE DELAVAN
__
Fourteen Are Unearthed Beneath Knoll Where Chicagoans Camp.
__

   Lake Delavan, Wisconsin – Out of a knoll that for years has formed the playground of thousands of Chicago people during the summer months, Phillips Bros., owners of Lake Lawn farm, have just dug fourteen human skeletons, and the probability is that still other finds will be unearthed.
    For years it has been suspected that the big mound on which several Chicago church choirs have been accustomed to camp, one after another, in different years, contained rich Indian relics, but no one seemed to make a move toward exploration.
     As the result of an argument as to what was hidden in the mound, the owners of the place dug down eight feet and raked out skeletons which are probably the largest specimens of the red race found in southern Wisconsin. Two of the skeletons were found in a sitting posture. All were buried in a stone-floored and walled pit, over which a solid clay slab had been placed.
    The skeletons have been preserved intact and will go to the state museum at Madison.
    Walworth county has a very large number of the mounds, some of them having been explored, with the result that only a few relics, most of them crude weapons, were found.

I’m not sure exactly what Mazulli is expecting to find in photographs from the 1911 excavations at Delavan, but I’m guessing from the story on his blog that he hopes to use photographic evidence to support his claim that the Delevan skeletons were in the “giant” range of human stature (i.e., over 7’ tall). He claims to have demonstrated that a photo from Catalina Island, California, shows a skeleton from an individual that would have been over 8’6’ tall. I didn’t find any accounts that give height estimates for the Delavan skeletons, so I have no idea where his information about 7’-9’ skeletons comes from. Perhaps there is some newspaper account or source out there that gives these specific height estimates. They certainly don’t appear in the accounts that I found.

Were the remains from Delavan the skeletons of giant Nephilim as Marzulli claims?

No. Here's what the accounts were really trying to describe.

The Delavan Accounts in a Historical Context: The Search for Human Ancestors

The early 1900s was an interesting time in the study of human evolution. Darwin had published On the Origin of Species in 1859, and the hunt was on for fossils that could demonstrate a “missing link” between humans and apes. Neandertal fossils had been known from Europe since the 1820s, but those remains were too similar to modern humans to qualify as a “missing link.” Eugene Dubois had discovered fossils of “Java Man” (later named Homo erectus) in Indonesia in the 1890s. Although Darwin had hypothesized that early human ancestors would be found in Africa, no fossils had yet been located (the first australopithecine, Taung Child, was not discovered until 1923).

The original remains of "Java Man." Note the sloping forehead.

Scientists in the first decade of the 1900s were busy looking for fossil material and arguing about whether Dubois’ “Java Man” was an ape or a human. Those remains consisted of a skull cap, a femur, and a molar tooth. The “missing link” conception of evolution led to an expectation that a human-ape ancestor would have a mixture of human-like and ape-like features. The year 1912, in addition to being the year of the Delevan stories, was also the year that the Piltdown skull (a fraudulent skull that was constructed from the cranium of a human and the jaw of an orangutan) made its public debut. While the lack of fossil material left open questions about both the geographic location of human origins and the characteristics of human ancestors, there was an expectation that those “missing link” ancestors would have some characteristics of human and some characteristics of apes.

Stories about human evolution and the remains of Neandertals and “Java Man” were being printed in newspapers in the early 1900s. A 1911 article with the headline “When Man Came on Earth” (Moberly Weekly Monitor, February 3, 1911) describes “the ape-man of Java:”

"He was a little more than five feet tall and stood erect, though still with the strong curve to his back inherited from a quadruped ancestor. He had a heavy face with retreating forehead, bulging teeth, massive jaws and receding chin."

An article titled “Blurred Beginnings of Mankind” (Kansas City Star, March 5, 1911) described the skulls of Neandertals:

"A low, receding forehead topped his skull. The nose was flat, the nostrils large, the jaw heavy, the chin small and receding. Two thick, bony ridges stood over his eyes. The skin may have been copper colored and the hair on it was thick. The large teeth bulged outward. His frame was canted forward a trifle."

Short stature and receding foreheads were common, publicized characteristics of both kinds of fossil “ape-men” that were known in the early 1900s. Newspaper articles also mentioned the size of the fossil skulls with regard to their cranial capacity: smaller than humans in the case of “Java Man,” larger than humans in the case of Neandertals. The figure to the right shows a drawing of a Neandertal skull that appeared in the June 17, 1911, edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer. The drawing clearly shows the sloping forehead and the protruding nasal bones.

It was in the context of this information about the characteristics of known fossils and the global hunt for the “missing link” that the stories of the Delevan skeleton were written.

The Intent of the Delavan Accounts

I think it is pretty clear that the goal of the 1912 newspaper story was to promote the idea that Delavan skeletons were somehow important to human evolution. That is why the stories describe skulls with sloping foreheads, protruding nasal bones, and monkey- or ape-like jaws. Many of the stories emphasize that the skeletons belong to an “unknown race,” and one headline even proclaims that the skeletons “May Prove Darwin Theory.”

In the 1912 story, there is no mention of the Native American affiliation of the remains (as specified in the 1911 story), and no mention of large stature or body size.

The 1912 description of the skulls was apparently provided by "attorney Maurice Morrissey" from Delavan. I do not know what Morrissey’s agenda was or what his qualifications were for describing skulls, but the features he chose to emphasize certainly resonated with the characteristics of the known “ape-man” fossils that were being described in the press. The identification of the front teeth as “regular molars” makes me doubt that he had any serious anatomical training. He was undoubtedly mistaking well-worn incisors for molars (if the account had been written a few decades prior, it probably would have called the front teeth “double teeth” or used the phrase “double teeth all around”).

The differences between the 1911 and the 1912 accounts from Delavan are telling. While the remains encountered in 1911 and 1912 were probably pretty similar, the stories about the remains were written with very different agendas. The 1911 accounts were of large Native Americans. The 1912 accounts were of a possible human ancestor with all the characteristics one would expect to find in the skeletons of "ape-men."

The similarities between the 1912 descriptions from Delavan and Ellensburg (also from 1912) are striking (more on that later).

What the Giantologists Got Wrong

In this case, it might be easier to address what the giantologists got right:

Wisconsin.

They appear to have gotten the site in the correct state. Other than that, I don't see a whole lot of merit in how the giantologists have treated the Delavan accounts.

Are these the skeletons of giants? I’m honestly not sure where that idea comes from. It is certainly nowhere in the newspaper stories from 1911 or 1912 that I have located. The claim for a 7'-9' height made on Marzulli's webpage is repeated in many other locations on the web that only reference the New York Times article. I honestly have no idea where that piece of the story originates--I do not know if there is some basis for it or if it’s a total fabrication. If someone can point me to a source for the specific height claim I would love to have a look at it.

In some cases, the remains from Delavan have grown even larger. One webpage about Delavan specifies that:

"These alleged findings were first reported on May 4, 1912. It stated that these skeletons had heights which ranged from 7.6 feet up to 10 feet and the skulls were much bigger than the heads of any type of person who lived inside America today. The story also said the skulls had double rows of teeth, six toes on each foot and six fingers on each hand. It was also reported that these bones were believed to belong to beings that could have even been aliens."

Not only have the skeletons gotten taller, but they've grown extra digits, extra teeth, and possibly been extraterrestrials. I shouldn't have to say it, but that description appears to contain considerable embellishments that are not present in the May 4, 1912, story in the New York Times.

The Delavan skeletons have become part of the lore of the new mythology of giants. In the hundred years since their discovery, they have grown in size and become amplified in significance. In reality, however, the stories from Delavan that I have seen appear to describe Woodland-period Native American remains disinterred from artificial burial mounds. The story from Delavan changed from 1911 to 1912 as someone saw an opportunity to attract attention by casting the remains in a light that would make them appear relevant to the unfolding story of human evolution. The reported features that were "strange" about the skeletons were characteristics that made them appear more like a possible human ancestor.

I hope the $502 on the table flushes out some new information about Delavan. I’m supposing that Marzulli is interested in the 1911 excavations because the story from that year actually specified that the skeletons were “probably the largest specimens of the red race found in southern Wisconsin.” The 1912 accounts mention nothing about the size of the skeletons, which makes sense because great height was not associated with fossils of earlier humans (Neandertals and “Java Man”) known in 1912. At any rate, if photographs from the excavation do surface, they will show skeletal remains that fall within the normal range of human variation. They will be of regular height, with regular-sized heads, with regular features of modern humans.

That will be $2 well spent.

7 Comments

A Note to Giantologists: "Double Teeth All Around" is Not the Same Thing as "Double Rows of Teeth"

12/21/2014

3 Comments

I have been trying to press home the point that 19th and early 20th century accounts of “giant” skeletons that use the phrase “double teeth all around” (or some close variant) are not describing “double rows of teeth.” I have spent some time providing examples of how the phrase was used and looking carefully at several accounts that use the phrase and have been misinterpreted by giantologists (New Mexico; Deerfield, Massachusetts; Ohio).

I have been clear that I am not proposing or assuming that historical/linguistic explanations involving the synonymy between “molar tooth” and “double tooth” apply to all the accounts. This is what I wrote in my post about the Deerfield skeleton:

“There may be some accounts for which one can make a good case that the presence of actual “extra” teeth was being described (there are many cases today of individuals with extra teeth - it is not difficult to find them online), but I guarantee there will be many more accounts for which the interpretation of “double rows of teeth” cannot be justified under closer scrutiny. I suggest that giantologists need to go through their "evidence" for double rows of teeth. Evaluate these accounts critically in their contexts, one by one, rather than simply saying there are hundreds or thousands of them. Many of these cases of "double rows of teeth" will disappear.”

In this post, I want to expand on my discussion of the phrase “double teeth all around.” This is a specific phrase that is fairly common in 19th and early 20th century accounts of large skeletons. I briefly discussed this phrase in my first post on how the historical/linguistic contexts of these accounts can help us understand them. Based on some discussions I've seen online, I'm not sure my first post on the subject was completely effective in explaining what this phrase means and clarifying why it is not equivalent to “double rows of teeth.” So I'm going to talk about it some more. Here’s what it means, when it was used, and who it was used to describe.

“Double Teeth All Around:” What the Phrase Means

The phrase "double teeth all around" is a colloquial phrase that was used to describe a pattern of heavy tooth wear that involved the front “single” teeth (the incisors, canines, and premolars) as well as the “grinding” or “double” teeth (the molars). The phrase was used to communicate the (mistaken) impression that a person had all "double teeth" (molars aka “grinders”) rather than a mixture of "double teeth" and "single teeth" (incisors, canines, and premolars) as in a normal human dentition.

But don’t take my word for it -- listen to what some turn-of-the-century dentists had to say (emphases added).

This passage from a 1900 paper by Alton Howard Thompson titled “Mechanical Abrasion of the Teeth” (printed in The Western Dental Journal, Vol. 43) (available here) describes exactly what is meant by the phrase “double teeth all around” and how the phrase has been used to describe the heavily worn teeth observed in skeletal remains:

“Among ancient and savage peoples the excessive wear of the teeth is almost universal, and is often quite remarkable. It is almost constant in adult skulls, as an examination of the specimens in museums will show. This is due to the hard, uncooked, or gritty nature of the food employed. The writer has recently examined nearly two thousand skulls in the museums of Philadelphia, and the destructive wear of the teeth in ancient savage races is almost universal. Only in young skulls could the cusp patterns be made out with any degree of certainty. The pulp usually recedes before the encroachment of abrasion, but frequently it is exposed, and its death and alveolar abscess ensue. This disease from this cause is quite common in ancient skulls where the teeth are much worn. Inexpert observers of ancient skulls are disposed to classify the much-abraded teeth as being different from the teeth of Europeans, and as having “double teeth all around.” Many old travelers thus describe the worn teeth of savage people, and even recently a newspaper archeologist writes of the teeth of the ancient Cliff-Dwellers of Colorado as being different from those of later man in being “double teeth all around.” Some of the early explorers in Egypt described the teeth of the ancient mummies as being “thick at the edge,” and different from those of living races. In the collections above referred to the writer found no ancient skulls with “double teeth all around,” but did find that destructive abrasion was almost universal, the anterior teeth being often worn to the base, and showing the round section of the tooth at that point which so often misleads inexpert observers and perpetuates the popular illusion. The mistake is pardonable in the laity, but is inexcusable in anthropologists who have a knowledge of human anatomy and are exact as to the anatomical variations of other parts of the human body” (pg. 252-253).

The following paragraph is from a paper entitled “The Significance of the Natural Form and Arrangement of the Dental Arches of Man, with a Consideration of the Changes which Occur as a Result of their Artificial Derangement by Filing or by the Extraction of Teeth,” by Isaac C. Davenport from the journal The Dental Cosmos (1887, Volume XXIX, No. 7) (available here):

“One appreciates the beauty of the general relation of the articulating surfaces as one notes the effects of wear upon the teeth. For example, as the cusps wear down the lower jaw moves forward, and the inner surfaces of the upper incisors become thinner and thinner. When the flat surfaces of the molars alone remain, the cutting edges of the incisors, which projected over the lower teeth, have also been worn away, and we have the characteristic grinding surface called “double teeth” all around” (pg. 420).

Davenport’s theory it that heavy wear on the molars naturally changes the way the teeth come together and causes the jaw to move forward, bringing the cusps of the incisors into opposition and causing them to be worn down as they are used for grinding rather than cutting.

The following passage from a 1907 paper entitled “Jumping the Bite in Senile Abrasion” in American Orthodontist (Volume 1) (available here), also by Alton H. Thompson, speaks volumes:

“ . . . The incisors of man when worn to the thick part of the neck, show the broad outlines of this portion of the crown. This broad and grooved appearance of the incisors gives rise to the popular saying of having “double teeth all around,” when such a condition is observed by the laity. Unfortunately, there is much misleading pseudo-science that assists in perpetuating this absurd error by magazine and newspaper writers when describing antique skulls. I have seen accounts of scientific men, archeologists, who have insisted upon a fundamental difference in the anatomy of the teeth of ancient Egyptians, Mexican and other antique races, which happened to have worn teeth in their skulls. Such ignorance and stupidity is exasperating” (pg. 29).

Amen, Dr. Thompson.

“Double Teeth All Around:” When the Phrase Was Used

The phrase “double teeth all around” appears to have been used in North America between about 1820 and 1920, with a peak in usage between about 1880 and 1905. I am basing this conclusion on two sources: newspapers and books.

The top portion of the figure to the right shows a histogram of the occurrence of the phrase, generated using the search tool on Newspapers.com. The search identified 55 matches of the phrase, the earliest being in 1821. The latest occurrences of the phrase were in 1945, 1949, and 1960. In all three of those post-1900 cases, the phrase was used in a re-telling of a story from the last half of the nineteenth century (i.e., 1850-1900). These later occurrences of the phrase were completely consistent with the idea that the phrase was not in common usage after the 1920s.

The bottom portion of the figure shows a Google Ngram of the phrase “double teeth all around.” As with the newspaper data above, the post-1920s occurrences are re-tellings of 19th century stories.

“Double Teeth All Around:” Who the Phrase Was Used to Describe

Who had “double teeth all around”? Was this phrase only used to describe the teeth of giant skeletons?

No. Not even close.

While the phrase “double teeth all around” surely was used sometimes to describe the teeth of skeletons, it certainly was not limited to that use. I have provided some examples of where the phrase was used to describe the teeth of living individuals. Here are a few more:

    “There is a boy named Kimmery in Riley township, Vigo county, who is eleven years old, weighs but ten pounds, has long hair and eyebrows, and a set of double teeth all around. He is dumb, but not deaf” (Indianapolis News, January 20, 1872).

    “The Hartford Times tells of a man near Pomfret, Conn., thirty years old, who was born deaf and blind . . . He is well developed physically, is of ordinary height, has a stout, thick neck, and looks strong and robust. . . . This man had a full set of strong double teeth all around, and every one of them had to be pulled out, as he tore his clothes to pieces with them” (Oskaloosa Independent, February 8, 1873).

“ . . . Little Crow was one of the most savage of savages, and when he was killed his head was cut off, a stake or pole was run through the rear part of the skull, and the head was then paraded through the streets of Hutchison. He had double teeth all around in both jaws—not wholly a novelty in an Indian’s mouth” (The Valley Republican, December 14, 1878).

“ . . . Hawkins, who was sixty-five at the time of his death, had been known to sleep out doors without covering on the coldest nights; he had double teeth all around. On frequent occasions he would, on a wager, eat up, masticate, and swallow an ordinary seven by nine pane of glass in the presence of a dozen spectators; . . .” (The Intelligencer, September 30, 1880).

“ . . . In 1827 an inquest was held on a drowned body recovered from Lake Ontario. The description agreed with that of the missing exposer of Freemasonry’s harmless mummeries, and Mr. Weed’s committee decided on another inquest. Before it was held he obtained from Mrs. Morgan an account of what was most striking in her husband’s personality. She said he had double teeth all around, and a dentist confirmed this peculiarity” (The New York Times, November 29, 1882).

    “Old Polka Dot was a firm man, with double teeth all around, and his prowess got into the personal columns of the papers every little while. He had a daughter named Utsayantha, which means “a messenger sent hastily for treasure,” so I am told, or possibly old Polka Dot meant to imply “one sent off for cash” (The Salt Lake Herald, September 7, 1890).

    “—John McDarby, of Salmon Falls, Mass., has double teeth all around, and a stomach which doesn’t rebel when he chews and swallows glass, stones and other indigestibles” (Pittsburgh Dispatch, August 1, 1892).

The alert reader will have noticed that none of these stories is about a giant skeleton. It seems to me that if “double teeth all around” was some kind of trait that was associated exclusively with giants, it wouldn’t have been present in this wide assortment of living individuals of various ages, heights, ethnicities, and capacities to eat glass. Am I missing something?

What the Giantologists Got Wrong

The phrase “double teeth all around” has nothing whatsoever to do with "double rows of teeth." In previous posts I have discussed several cases where the phrase was misinterpreted. There are many, many more examples out there. I'll get to some of them in the coming days, but it should be pretty obvious by now that a skeleton with "double teeth all around" is nothing anomalous, at least in regards to the dentition. My impression is that the misinterpretation of “double teeth all around” goes back to the beginnings of modern giantology: perhaps just a generation or two after the phrase fell out of use.

Whatever the origins of the first errors misinterpreting this phrase, it is clear that “double rows of teeth” has become an integral part of the modern mythology of giants. As part of that modern mythology, the phrase “double teeth all around” is automatically and uncritically interpreted as “double rows of teeth.” It shouldn’t be. That’s not what it means. That should be obvious by now.

Perhaps this misinterpretation was initially an honest mistake. “Double teeth all around” is, after all, an archaic phrase that was falling out of common usage (along with the term “double tooth” as a synonym for molar) a century ago and today sounds pretty strange. I would buy that explanation in the 1980s or 1990s, but not today. I have a hard time understanding how giantologists, having the same ability as me to quickly search old books and newspapers online, didn’t crack the code of “double teeth all around.” Almost everything I quoted here shows up in basic internet searches. I got the histogram of newspaper occurrences by paying a whopping $7.95 for a one month subscription to Newspaper.com. On Search for the Lost Giants they fly around in helicopters, crisscross the country, go caving, hire a sketch artist, and consult with a dental anthropologist, but nobody thinks to type the phrase into Google?

I’m one guy. With a full time job. Doing some basic internet searches between preparing lectures, washing dishes, and changing diapers. Honestly, I have to say, it wasn’t that tough to figure out.

That makes me question whether the giantologists really wanted to figure this out, whether they really want to figure anything out. I wonder if they’d rather have the warmth of a tall tale instead of a solid explanation that could be used to reduce some of the “noise” that permeates these accounts. I’m a little surprised by how quiet they’ve been in response to what I’ve been posting. I appreciate the few responses that I’ve gotten, but I really thought there would be more. I’ve begun engaging their claims by having a new look at the evidence. I’ve come to different conclusions –conclusions that I can strongly support. And I’ve heard almost nothing. To me, that’s what is really strange.

3 Comments

How About "Three Rows of Teeth"? A Closer Look at the Description of Skeletons from Amelia Island, Florida

12/20/2014

16 Comments

Amelia Island, Florida: not the home of a giant skull with three rows of teeth.

I have been challenged twice by Chris Lesley to explain a skull with “three rows of teeth” found in Amelia Island, Florida. Commenting on my blog, Lesley wrote (emphasis added):

"I think what is written above is a good skeptical attempt, and i think some people may need an "out" door, any will do. There is simply more room for a double row of teeth in a person whose skull is abnormally thick (Concord, New Hampshire) as in many accounts. These jaws are said to be able to slip over the head of a full grown man and perfect all the way around in many accounts. I think its dishonest to assume some alternative to the semantics of a few (teeth were double) and assume intent of the writer. While so many other articles Like the finds in Amelia Island that not only that two skulls are said to have two rows of teeth, One of the skulls from Florida is said to have 3 rows of teeth. No explanation necessary, i will chose option 5) The author's rebuttal is cherry-picking. This research has been done by a handful of us giant-researchers now there is too many to count. For my part: by next year i will double the accounts that are available now. (with double rows of teeth) GAWM"

The acronym “GAWM” stands for Greater Ancestors World Museum, which Lesley runs. The GAWM website has the following statement about the Amelia Island skeletons:

"Amelia Island Skulls with two rows of teeth

Amelia Island is practically in my back yard, about 40 miles from my location, so this story strikes a higher interest level for me. On Amelia island multiple burial mounds were found containing skeletons, and artifacts. Out of the hundreds of skeletons only perfect teeth were found.

A skull was found on the island that i hope to replicate with some information. An extremely large skull with perfect teeth, and perfectly preserved was found on the island a massive skull with two rows of teeth, and one with three rows. The third set being the start of a nucleus of a tooth. The skull was dry, not filled with soil in the cavities, perfect and complete.

Within a short time span of a couple of hours the skull crumbled to dust upon exposure to air."

Spoiler alert: there is no “massive skull” with “three rows of teeth” described among the Amelia Island skeletons. Lesley has mixed up different parts of the account and misinterpreted/misrepresented a description of an unusual, unerupted supernumerary tooth as “three rows of teeth.”

Lesley is referring to a description in the 1874 Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution (available here). The following is a transcript of the paragraph about the teeth of the Amelia Island skeletons by Augustus Mitchell in a section titled “Antiquities of Florida” (pages 391-392) [number 440 in my database]:

    “The teeth of many of the crania of this mound were, without exceptions, in a perfect state of preservation, the vitrified enamel of these organs being capable of resisting exposure for centuries. These teeth presented distinctive appearances throughout, in the absence of the pointed canines; the incisors, canine, cuspides, and bicuspids all presented flat crowns, worn to smoothness by the attrition of sand and ashes eaten with the half-cooked food. A bi-section of some of these teeth showed the dental nerve to be protected by an unusual thickness on the surface of the crown. Not one carious tooth was found among the hundreds in the mound. Many were entire in the lower jaw, the whole compactly and firmly set. In some the second set was observed; while one jaw had evident signs of a third set, a nucleus of a tooth being seen beneath the neck of a tooth of a very old jaw, whose alveolar process was gone, and the whole lower jaw ossified to a sharp edge; none showing the partial loss of teeth by caries and decay.
    . . .
    Pursuing my investigations, and excavating further toward the southeast face of the mound, I came upon the largest-sized stone ax I have ever seen or that had ever been found in that section of the country. Close to it was the largest and most perfect cranium of the mound, not crushed by the pressure of the earth, complete in its form, quite dry, and no sand in its cavity; together with its inferior maxillary bone, with all the teeth in the upper and lower jaws. Near by the side of this skull were the femoris, the tibia, the humerus, ulna, and part of the radius, with a portion of the pelvis directly under the skull. All of the other bones of this large skeleton were completely or partially decayed. Contiguous to this was nearly a quart of red ocher, and quite the same quantity of what seemed to be pulverized charcoal, as materials of war-paint. Anticipating a perfect specimen in this skull, I was doomed to disappointment; for, after taking it out of the earth and setting it up, so that I could view the fleshless face of this gigantic savage, in the space two hours it crumbled to pieces, except small portions. According to the measurement of the bones of this skeleton, its height must have been quite 7 feet.”

Two major discrepancies are notable between the 1874 description and Lesley’s characterizations of it. First, the account says "third set of teeth," not "three rows of teeth. Those are not the same thing. Second, the "largest and most perfect cranium" is not the one with the "third set of teeth."

The Accounts Says “Third Set” of Teeth, not “Three Rows of Teeth”

First, nowhere in account does Mitchell describe a skull with three “rows” of teeth (or two rows of teeth, for that matter). On page 392, he writes (emphasis added):

"In some the second set was observed; while one jaw had evident signs of a third set, a nucleus of a tooth being seen beneath the neck of a tooth of a very old jaw, whose alveolar process was gone, and the whole lower jaw ossified to a sharp edge; none showing the partial loss of teeth by caries and decay."

The use of the word “set” is the key here. The term “second set” refers to the permanent teeth (as opposed to the “first set” or deciduous or “baby” teeth). His reference to a “third set” is very specific, and involves observation of a single “nucleus of a tooth” that can be seen beneath the neck of one of the permanent teeth. This “nucleus of a tooth” can only be seen because the alveolar process (the bone surrounding the teeth) was damaged, allowing an observer to see the roots of one of the permanent teeth. The “evident signs of a third set” of teeth was a tooth developing among the roots of a permanent tooth. This was noteworthy because it is not common for “new” teeth to develop after eruption of all the permanent teeth. As is shown by the quotes below, however, the phenomenon was not unknown.

The following passages from The Pathology of the Teeth (1872) by Carl Wedl (available here) illustrate use of the term “set” to describe the succession of deciduous and permanent teeth and show what is meant by a “third set” of teeth (emphasis added):

"The second upper molars not unfrequently make their appearance before the corresponding lower teeth. With these, the first set of teeth, the milk or deciduous set is completed, generally by the end of the second, or occasionally not until the end of the third year" (pg. 74).

    "SECOND DENTITION.—The eruption of the first molars ushers in the shedding of the teeth. They appear in the seventh year . . ." (pg. 76)

    "THIRD DENTITION.—The possibility of the occurrence of a third dentition is doubted, and even openly denied by many. Its opponents assert that cases of presumed third dentition are merely instances in which the teeth have not emerged, but have remained imbedded within the jaw until the occurrence of senile resorption of the alveolar processes. Deceptions may easily occur in regard to them, particularly among the ignorant, as well be evident from reference to the section upon the retention of teeth. On the other hand, however, we ought not to persist in the denial of the occurrence of a third dentition, on the ground that it is contrary to the current physiological doctrines.
    The writers of former times,* Aristotle, Eusachius, and Albinus, mention a repeated renewal of the teeth. In recent times, Fauchard, Bourdet, J. Hunter (the latter observed a third set of teeth in both jaws), Van Swieten, Haller, collected several such cases from different writers. Hufeland describes a case which came to his knowledge. In the one hundred and sixteenth year of life, new teeth were said to have made their appearance; six months after the loss of these, new molars appeared in each jaw. Serres observed two cases in the Hopital del Pitie; one of a man thirty-five years old, who two lower central incisors fell out, and were replaced after a few months; the other of a man seventy-six years old, who, during convalescence from a bilious fever, experienced pain and swelling in the gum of the under jaw, which disappeared on the eruption of a tooth with several eminences in the place of the second molar on the left side. The margins of the alveoli had not yet disappeared in this old man.
    C. A. Harris has no doubt that a third dentition does occur in extremely rare cases, and instances a number of examples where individuals, who for a long time had been toothless, acquired several teeth, or even an entire set, in extreme old age. . . ." (pg. 87)

Wedl continues with his discussion of purported cases of “third dentitions” and teeth erupting very late in life. Though an oddity (and a controversial one), there was nothing supernatural about these cases. These were normal people with somewhat anomalous dental characteristics.

Here is other example of the use of the term “set” from the 1894 book The Anatomy and Pathology of the Teeth by Carl F. W. Bodecker (available here) (emphasis added):

"The Temporary, Deciduous, or Milk Teeth.--In the mouth of an infant, about the sixth month after its birth, we observe the appearance of the first teeth, which belong to the so-called “temporary” or “deciduous” set" (p. 22).

"Originally, the temporary teeth, like those of the permanent set, are possessed of roots which gradually become shortened by absorption, as the growth of the permanent teeth proceeds" (p. 264).

And again, from the 1896 book Dental Pathology and Practice by Frank Abbot (available here):

"The term “children’s teeth,” as here used, refers more particularly to the temporary or deciduous set, which are twenty in number . . ." (p. 90).

"It must be remembered that the permanent set of teeth—those that are to take the places of the temporary ones (ten in each jaw)—depend almost entirely for their regularity upon proper care and timely removal of the temporary teeth" (p. 92-93).

It is pretty clear to me that, in his description of the Amelia Island skeletons, Mitchell was simply saying that many of the skeletons had their permanent teeth (“the second set” or the "second dentition") and therefore were adults. This was worthy of noting because of the low incidence of tooth decay that he observed (which was higher in the living populations at the time). He noted the lack of tooth decay and specified that that the population contained adults rather than children (who would have naturally had a lower incidence of caries). This goes along with his discussion of the wear of the teeth (which is a great example of a wear pattern that could have easily been called “double teeth all around” if this was a less formal description in, say, a newspaper).

Mitchell mentioned a particular incidence of an unerupted tooth that was developing beneath a permanent tooth because it was an oddity. In no way was he saying that the skull had "three rows of teeth." Lesley is misinterpreting and/or misrepresenting what Mitchell said in his description.

The “Massive Skull” Did Not Have a “Third Set” of Teeth

Second, Lesley has combined different parts of Mitchell's 1874 description to make it appear as though the largest skull had "three rows of teeth." On his website, Lesley states that:

"A skull was found on the island that i hope to replicate with some information. An extremely large skull with perfect teeth, and perfectly preserved was found on the island a massive skull with two rows of teeth, and one with three rows. The third set being the start of a nucleus of a tooth. The skull was dry, not filled with soil in the cavities, perfect and complete."

This is a jumbled up statement that equates "set" with "rows" and leaves the impression that there was a single large skull with three rows of teeth. That's simply not true.

As is plainly evident from the 1874 description supplied above, the “extremely large skull” is not the one with “three rows of teeth.” Mitchell (1874:392) states that the “largest” skull (to which Lesley is referring) had “all the teeth in the upper and lower jaws.” The skull with a “third set” of teeth, however, was described as missing most or all of the teeth on the mandible (“and the whole lower jaw ossified to a sharp edge”). These are not the same skulls: one has teeth in the mandible (lower jaw) and one does not. It doesn't take a nuanced reading of the account to figure that out.

What the Giantologists Got Wrong

There is no “massive skull” with “three rows of teeth” described among the Amelia Island skeletons. Lesley has mixed up different parts of the account and misinterpreted/misrepresented a description of an unusual, unerupted supernumerary tooth as “three rows of teeth.”

Why does Lesley conflate the two descriptions and interpret a clear description of a single supernumerary tooth as "three rows of teeth"? That’s a question for him to answer. Maybe he’ll clear it up for us here. I can only speculate based on what he's told me on Facebook. I suspect he mixes up the two parts of the account because he really wants there to be a “giant” skull with multiple rows of teeth near where he lives. Again, I'll let him explain why the existence of such a skull would be important. There isn’t such a skull described in the 1874 accounts from Amelia Island, however.

I'm not sure how you create a "replica" of something that never existed. I will look forward to seeing Lesley’s planned "replication." Maybe he will post a picture of it so we can all compare its details to Mitchell’s description.

I also look forward to Lesley's explanation, if he wishes to provide one. I interacted with him briefly on Facebook, but quickly decided it would be more useful to have those interactions in a place where they were open for others to see. I'm under no illusions about changing Lesley's mind about anything. Having a discussion in public, however, opens the possibility that I might be able to change someone else's mind about the validity of some of these claims.

16 Comments

"Giant" Humbugs, Past and Present

12/18/2014

0 Comments

P. T. Barnum: not afraid to sell you what you want to buy.

I do not think the majority of the “giant” accounts from the 19th and early 20th century can be classified as intentional hoaxes. There are, however, several clear cases where “remains” were fabricated and intentionally misrepresented. The most famous of these is, of course, the Cardiff Giant (1869). I don’t really have anything to add to the discussion of that hoax, other than to note that the unauthorized replica of the giant created by P. T. Barnum is apparently on display at Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Farmington Hills, Michigan, fortuitously close to where I live. I smell a road trip.

The motive for creating hoax giants in the 19th century was, in at least some cases, financial: significant profits were possible from charging a fee to view the remains of a giant. This is why P. T. Barnum created his own copy of the Cardiff Giant, a proven money maker. In a speech published in 1854 (transcript below from the Grand River Times, November 15, 1854), Barnum describes the business of “humbug” and his plan to construct, “discover,” and then exhibit the skeleton of a manufactured giant:

BARNUM'S SPEECH ON HUMBUGS.
Delivered at Stamford, on the occasion of the Agricultural fair, Fairfield County.

    It seems to be a most unfortunate circumstance that I should be selected to speak on Humbug, as looking on the ladies, whose profession it peculiarly is, I find it hard to express myself in their presence. Everything is humbug; the whole state is humbug, except our Agricultural Society that alone is not.
    Humbug is generally defined, "deceit or imposition." A burglar who breaks into your house, a forger who cheats you of your property, or a rascal, is not a humbug, a humbug is an imposter; but in my opinion the true meaning of humbug is management tact to take an old truth and put it in an attractive form.
    . . .
    I have not the vanity to call myself a real scientific humbug, I am only an humble member of the profession.
    My ambition to be the prince of Humbugs I will resign, but I hope the public will take the will for the deed; I can assure them that if I had been able to give them all the humbugs that I have thought of, they would have been amply satisfied.
    Before I went to England with Tom Thumb I had a skeleton prepared from various bones. It was to have been made 18 feet high; it was to have been buried a year in Ohio, and then dug up by accident, so that the public might learn there were giants of old. The price I was to pay the person who proposed to put the skeleton together was to have been $225.
    But finding Tom Thumb more successful than I tho't, I sent word not to proceed with the skeleton. My manager who never tho't as highly of the scheme as it deserved, sold the skeleton for $50 or $75.
    Seven years afterwards I received from the south an account of a gigantic skeleton that had been found. Accompanying it were certificates of scientific and medical men as to genuineness. The owner asked $20,000 or $1,000 a month; I wrote to him if he brought it on I would take it if I found it as represented or would pay his expenses if not; I found it was my own old original humbug come back to me again; of course I refused it, and I never heard of it afterwards.

Barnum’s speech identifies that a successful "humbug" has to tap into an existing appetite of the public. There is no point in creating a “giant” if no-one is interested in paying to see it. In other words, a good “humbug” does not create a demand, but gives the people what they already want.

Why was there an appetite for giants in the 19th century? That is a great question, worthy of a book all by itself. While I can’t yet provide anything approaching a complete answer, I can state with some confidence that there was a connection between the public's interest in giants and the mention of “giants” in the Old Testament. A story with the headline “Giants of Olden Times” or “There Were Giants in Those Days,” listing various giants from Europe ranging in height from 10’ to 40’, was reprinted numerous times in American newspapers from the 1840s through the 1870s. The headline of the story makes a clear allusion the words of Genesis 6:4: “There were giants in the earth in those days” (King James Bible).

That passage from Genesis and the small number of other references to “giants” in the Bible continue to feature prominently in the claims of those who profess to believe in giants today. Sometimes the connection between “giants” and religion is submerged, and sometimes it is more explicit. Creationists seem to like giants because their demonstrated existence would serve the dual purpose of (1) discrediting evolutionary theory and (2) “proving” the Bible to be literally true (more on that later).

Widely-distributed picture of a giant skeleton, originally created for a photo manipulation contest.

The practice of creating “humbug” giants, like the public's appetite for consuming them, has not gone extinct. Do a Google image search for “giant skeleton” and have a look at what comes up: dozens of images showing the excavation of truly giant human skeletons. These are all fake, and the debunking of many of them is easy to find online (an example from the Christian Telegraph). As explained by National Geographic, for example, the photo at the right was originally produced for a Canadian photo manipulation contest. This is the case for several others as well.

These faked photographs have now, ironically, become part of both the case for giants and the claim that there is a conspiracy to discredit giants.

I recently joined Pinterest because I wondered if it could be another avenue for promoting my evidence-based analysis of the “giants” phenomenon. Last night I spent a few minutes looking around.

Oh my.

Giants were not in short supply. I do not recall ever before having seen such a jumbled tangle of truth and untruth. Among the pins under “Giants” and “Nephilim” there is so little overlap between the words and images that it leaves little doubt (in my mind, anyway) about the intentions of the posters: they’re using fakery to sell a story that the public is ready to buy and the actual truth of a claim or accuracy of a statement is completely immaterial. That was humbug under P. T. Barnum’s definition in 1854, and it’s humbug today.

Human skeletons from India, not giant Nephilim skeletons from Canada.

One post on Pinterest had the caption “The Nephilim Chronicles: Fallen Angels in the Ohio Valley: Giant Nephilim Skeletons Uncovered in Canada” along with a photograph of skeletons from the “massacre” at Mohenjo Daro in India. I followed the link to Fritz Zimmerman’s website where, indeed, the photograph from Mohenjo Daro is presented under the title “Giant Nephilim Skeletons Uncovered in Canada.” I’ll let someone else try to explain what one has to do with the other. I certainly can’t figure it out.

Zimmerman’s blog proclaims that “Giant humans called the Nephilim once roamed the earth. This blog is dedicated to the historic documents that shows this mysterious chapter in the Bible was true.”

There’s your market, and there’s your humbug.

0 Comments

Mastodon to Man: An 1845 "Giant" from Tennessee

12/17/2014

6 Comments

Another thing that is not the remains of a giant human: skull of a juvenile mastodon (cast).

My last several posts about historical accounts of “ancient giants” have examined, among other things, claims for the existence of skeletons with double rows of teeth. I have argued that phrases like “double teeth all around,” common in the 19th century, can be shown to be describing a distinctive wear pattern on the teeth rather than the existence of multiple, concentric rows of teeth. All of the cases I’ve looked at so far have been related to remains of humans described as “giants,” estimated in the original accounts to have ranged from about 6’8” to 8’ tall.

There are several historical accounts of the discovery of “giants” that were much taller: 10’ . . . 12’ . . . up to 38’ tall. I’m not sure how different giantologists interpret these remains and fit them into their various stories, but I’m guessing there is probably a spectrum of opinion. Real? Not real? I'll let them tell you what they think. I'll tell you what I think.

The remains of "giants" in this very large size class are mostly like the remains of fossil animals. This idea is neither new nor particularly controversial. As Jason Colavito touched in this blog post, this pattern of mistaken identity was evident even at the time the bones were being discovered.

For those who doubt that the bones of large animals were interpreted (or intentionally misinterpreted) as those of giant humans, I offer the following three accounts. The first two are 1845 newspaper accounts of the discovery of purported giant human remains. The third, published in the American Journal of Science in 1846, provides a professional evaluation of one set of those remains based on firsthand observation. Spoiler alert: they were mastodon bones.

First, from the Cleveland Herald (September 10, 1845) [number 135 in my database]:

    A GIANT EXHUMED.—We are informed on the most reliable authority that a person in Franklin county, Tennessee, while digging a well, a few weeks since, found a human skeleton, at the depth of fifty feet, which measures eighteen feet in length. The immense frame was entire with an unimportant exception in one of the extremities. It has been visited by several of the principal members of the medical faculty in Nashville, and pronounced unequivocally, by all, the skeleton of a huge man. The bone of the thigh measured five feet; and it was computed that the height of the living man, making the proper allowance for muscles, must have been at least twenty feet. The finder had been offered eight thousand dollars for it, but had determined not to sell it any price until first exhibiting it for twelve months. He is now having the different parts wired together for this purpose. These unwritten records of the men and animals of other ages, that are from time to time dug out of the bowels of the earth, put conjecture to confusion, and almost surpass imagination itself.—Madison Banner.

Second, from the New York Herald (December 12, 1845) [number 136 in my database]:

    THE GIANT SKELETON.—The skeleton discovered in Williamson county in this State, and supposed to be that of a human being, has frequently been referred to, within a few days past, in the House of Representatives. Notwithstanding the description given of it, as Wouter Van Twiller would say, “we have our doubts about the matter.” This skeleton was found about sixty feet beneath the surface of the earth, embedded in a stratum of the hardest kind of clay. The bones are said to be in a perfect state of preservation, and weigh in the aggregate fifteen hundred pounds. All the large and characteristic bones are entire, and the skull, arms, and thigh bones, knee pans, shoulder sockets and collar bones remove all doubts, and the animal to whom they belonged has been decided “to belong to the genus homo.” This gentleman, when he walked the earth, was about eighteen feet high, and when clothed in flesh must have weighed not less than 3000 pounds. “The bones of the thigh and leg measure six feet six inches; his skull is said to be about two-thirds the size of a flour barrel, and capable of holding in its cavities near two bushels. (He must have had a goodly quantity of brains, and if intellect be in proportion to the size of the brain, he must have possessed extraordinary intellectual powers). The description further states, that “a coffee cup of good size could be put in the eye-sockets.” The jaw teeth weight from 8 ½ to 6 pounds. It is stated that an eminent physician and anatomist is engaged in putting the skeleton together, and that is will shortly be ready for public exhibition.—Nashville Orthopolitan.

These two accounts from 1845 appear to describe different discoveries of similar remains, both from Tennessee (but different counties). The measurements of the femur differ, but the estimated height (18’) is the same. In the first account, we see the same “rule of thumb” for the relationship between femur length and height that was applied to the Ellensburg skeleton (height = 4x femur length).

The next piece is from a paper by William M. Carpenter published in the March 1846 (Volume 1, page 244) issue of the American Journal of Science (available here).

ART. XII.—Remarks on some Fossil Bones recently brought to New Orleans from Tennessee and from Texas ; by William M. Carpenter, M.D., Prof. in the Med. Coll. of Louisiana.

    I.Fossils from Tennessee—the “gigantic Fossil Man,” (being the skeleton of a young mastodon.) Much interest has been recently excited by the announcement of the discovery in Tennessee of the remains of a man eighteen feet high. The papers teemed with accounts of the prodigy, and public confidence was secured by the assertion that the distinguished physicians of the west had testified that they were human remains. About the last of December these remains reached this city; and on the first of January I was requested by a distinguished surgeon here to go with him on the invitation of the proprietor to examine them, and give an opinion. They had been erected in a high room; the skeleton was sustained in its erect position by a large upright beam of timber. At a glance it was apparent that it was nothing more than the skeleton of a young mastodon, (one of Godman’s Tetracaulodons, with sockets for four tusks.) The bones of the leg and ankle were complete, the metatarsal bones wanting. Most of the vertebrae were present; the ribs mostly of wood. The pelvic arrangement was entirely of wood; the scapulae were present, but somewhat broken, and were rigged on with a most human-like elevation; pieces of ribs supplying the want of clavicles. The osseous parts of the head were portions, nearly complete, of the upper and lower jaws. Some of the molars were quite complete; of the tusks, only one little stump remained, but the four alveoli of the upper jaw had large incisive looking wooden teeth fitted into them, and the lower jaw supplied to correspond. The cranium was entirely wanting from the lower margin of the orbits, back; but a raw-hide cranium was fitted o, which was much more becoming to the animal in his new capacity than the old one would have been.
    The artificial construction was principally in the pelvis and head; and take it as thus built up, with its half human, half beast-like look, and its great hooked incisive teeth, it certainly must have conveyed to the ignorant spectator a most horrible idea of a hideous, diabolical giant, of which he no doubt dreamed for months. To one informed in such matters it really presented a most ludicrous figure.
    The person who had it for exhibition was honest, I believe, in his convictions as to its being the remains of a man, having been confirmed in them by numerous physicians, whose certificates he had in his possession; and having asked and received my opinion, he determined to box it up, never to be exhibited again as the remains of a human being.

The “giant” that was examined by Carpenter could have been the one from Franklin County, the one from Williamson County, or perhaps even a completely different one. Regardless, what we have here is a fascinating first person account of one of the “giants” that was traveling around the county being exhibited (for money) in the mid-1800s: it was a wired-together composition of wood, leather, and fossil elephant bones.

Who should we believe? The newspapers or Carpenter? That's an easy one.

William M. Carpenter was a physician and naturalist, educated at West Point. He was not a lightweight, and was clearly conversant in the anatomy of fossil mammals (the remainder of his 1846 paper contains technical descriptions of fossil ox and tapir bones from Texas, among other things). Not every physician in 1845 would have had his training, interest, and experience. And keep in mind that this was a time when information about the natural world was rapidly expanding. American mastodon (Mammut americanum, into which Tetracaulodon is now folded) was only formally named in 1792, and On the Origin of Species was not published until 1859. I do not think that it is wise to assume that everyone with medical training at the time could reliably identify the skeletal remains of extinct animals, or reliably discriminate them from "giant" human remains. Weighing the 1845 newspaper accounts against Carpenter’s 1846 paper, I think it is clear which is the more credible interpretation.

It would be pretty sweet if someone could find the box containing the contrivance described by Carpenter: the “gigantic Fossil Man” belongs in a history museum and would be a wonderful thing to include in a display about the emergence of a scientific understanding of the past that was ongoing in the mid-1800s. If you find it and donate it somewhere where it can be displayed for what it is, I'll give you fifty bucks and a Major Award that is not a leg lamp. Look for a box with the words "Skeleton of Giant" crossed out.

ADDENDUM:

Brilliant! Just minutes after finishing this post I found this 2013 paper by Kevin Smith entitled "The Williamson County Giant (aka A Pleistocene Mega-Human)." It contains much more detail that I've assembled here. Bravo!

6 Comments

More Misinterpretations: "Giants with Double Rows of Teeth" from Ohio

12/16/2014

8 Comments

Medina County, Ohio: lots of barns, no giant skeletons with double rows of teeth.

In his book A Tradition of Giants (available here), Ross Hamilton presents his conclusions about the presence of “double rows of teeth” in large skeletons from Ohio and elsewhere. Spoiler alert: none of the accounts of Ohio skeletons presented by Hamilton actually describes an individual with multiple, concentric rows of teeth.

Hamilton (2007:18-19) writes:

“The trait of double rows of teeth may date this Ohio mound (below) to a very early period, perhaps early or pre-Adena. This now rare dental condition can be found with some frequency in the early reports. It is in modern races a rare and recessive trait.

The remarkable feature of these remains was they had double teeth in front as well as in back of the mouth and in both upper and lower jaws. (Seneca Township, Noble County, Ohio)

Such teeth were always associated with extra-large frames, and these people may have had a connection to a segment of the military Adena or their Archaic predecessors the Ohio Allegheny people who, in accord with Indian tradition, also boasted members of very large stature.”

Hamilton goes on to give three more examples of “double rows of teeth” in this section, including the skeleton from Deerfield, Massachusetts, that I discussed several days ago. He also provides an account from Medina County, Ohio, in support of the Adena giant soldier with “double rows of teeth” idea (pp. 92-94) and several accounts that he says describe cannibalistic giants with “double rows of teeth” from New York. Hamilton (2005:115) weaves these various accounts into a cultural-historical timeline, tracking the “possible movement of the double-rows-of-teeth giant Lenape warrior class from extreme northern Ohio to the east, becoming the Stonish giants.”

Okay.

Hamilton’s interpretation is built on, among other things, the idea that “double rows of teeth” is a distinctive genetic condition (see above) that can be used to discern relationships among populations. That assumption is not at all justifiable when these accounts are considered in their historic context. As I have discussed here and in reference to “giant” skeletons from Ellensburg, Washington, northern New Mexico, and Deerfield, Massachusetts, the phrase “double teeth all around” was commonly used in nineteenth century America to describe a set of teeth that, because of their worn state, appeared to consist entirely of “double teeth” aka molars.

"Double teeth all around" does not mean "double rows of teeth." If you don't believe me, go to the Library of Congress and search for the phrase in its archive of historic newspapers and see what stories come up. They won't all be about giant skeletons. You’ll find cases where the phrase is used to describe living individuals (and not just those with “extra large frames,” as Hamilton [2005:19] assures us). Go a little crazy and search for "double teeth," also. It might surprise you.

Having “double teeth all around” is a result of tooth wear, not genetics. It was worthy of mention in these 19th century accounts because it was not a wear pattern that was typical of most individuals living at the time. That does not make it a mystery, however, or something supernatural.

Back the Ohio accounts. Let’s look at three that Hamilton (2007) highlights:

Noble County, Ohio

Here is the text of the account from Noble County, Ohio (Historical Collections of Ohio in Two Volumes, Noble County, Ohio, pp. 350-351, available here) [428 in my database]:

Huge Skeletons.—In Seneca township was opened, in 1872, one of the numerous Indian mounds that abound in the neighborhood. This particular one was locally known as the "Bates" mound. Upon being dug into it was found to contain a few broken pieces of earthenware, a lot of flint-heads and one or two stone implements and the remains of three skeletons, whose size would indicate they measured in life at least eight feet in height. The remarkable feature of these remains was they had double teeth in front as well as in back of mouth and in both upper and lower jaws. Upon exposure to the atmosphere the skeletons soon crumbled back to mother earth.

This is a simple one. Translated from the 19th century parlance, the writer of the account is remarking that the skeleton appeared to have molar/grinding teeth instead of cutting teeth (incisors and canines). This was a common interpretation in skeletal human remains (and in living humans) when the front teeth were highly worn. There is no “double row of teeth” here.

Lawrence County, Ohio

Here is the text of the 1892 account published in the Ironton Register (May 5, 1892) [I have not yet gotten an original copy of this one, so I’m assuming it was reproduced accurately by Hamilton; I do not know how much of the story this passage constitutes]:

Where Proctorville now stands was one day part of a well paved city, but I think the greater part of it is now in the Ohio river. Only a few mounds, there; one of which was near the C. Wilgus mansion and contained a skeleton of a very large person, all double teeth, and sound, in a jaw bone that would go over the jaw with the flesh on, of a large man; the common burying ground was well filled with skeletons at a depth of about 6 feet. Part of the pavement was of boulder stone and part of well preserved brick.

This one is also fairly simple. Again, once you understand that a “double tooth” is a molar tooth, it is clear that the writer is describing a skeleton with “double teeth all around:” a dentition filled with well-worn teeth that appear to be molars.

Medina County, Ohio

Here is the text of the account from Medina County, Ohio (History of Medina County, Ohio, 1881, p. 21; available here) [424 in my database]:

In digging the cellar of the house, nine human skeletons were found, and, like such specimens from other ancient mounds of the country, they showed that the Mound Builders were men of large stature. The skeletons were not found lying in such a manner as would indicate any arrangement of the bodies on the part of the entombers. In describing the tomb, Mr. Albert Harris said” It looked as if the bodies had been dumped into a ditch.” Some of them were buried deeper than others, the lower one being about seven feet below the surface. When the skeletons were found, Mr. Harris was twenty years of age, yet he states that he could put one of the skulls over his head, and let it rest upon his shoulders, while wearing a fur cap at the same time. The large size of all the bones was remarked, and the teeth were described as "double all the way round.” They were kept for a time, and then again buried by Judge Harris. At the center of the mound, and .some nine feet below the surface, was found a small monument of cobble-stones. The stones, or bowlders, composing this were regularly arranged in round Iayers, the monument being topped off with a single stone. There were about two bushels in measure of these small bowlders, and mixed with them was a quantity- of charcoal. The cobble-stones, charcoal and skeletons were the only things noticed at the turn of digging the cellar, in 1830.

This account even puts the phrase “double all the way around” in quotation marks, identifying it as a colloquialism. Like the two accounts above, this account was meant to convey that the teeth appeared to be all molars or grinding teeth, not “double rows of teeth.”

What the Giantologists Got Wrong

These three accounts from Ohio are clearly describing a state of tooth wear (that was sometimes mis-interpreted in the 19th century as the presence of molar teeth in place of cutting teeth), not a genetic condition. Hamilton’s (2007) claim that “double rows of teeth” are some kind of genetic trait that can be used to identify populations of extra-large beings or track their movements across the landscape is not supportable based on these cases. Upon this non-existent "foundation," he has assembled a complicated story that involves cannibalistic giants, population movements, and an Adena military force. Without the "double rows of teeth," what happens to this story?

There are plenty of other cases interpreted by Hamilton and others as “double rows of teeth.” We shall how many of these still appear mysterious under closer scrutiny.

As usual, please let me know if you see any errors in what I have presented here.

8 Comments

Words Matter: "Double Rows of Teeth," Jim Vieira, and the Deerfield Skeleton

12/14/2014

6 Comments

Deerfield, MA: not home to a giant skeleton with double rows of teeth.

Jim Vieira, one of the stars of the History Channel program Search for the Lost Giants, describes reading the account of a large skeleton from Deerfield, Massachusetts, as a sort of “ah-ha” moment. A post on his Facebook page (Stone Builders, Mound Builders and the Giants of Ancient America, December 5, 2012) describes it like this (emphasis added):

"Not long ago while reading through local town histories in my ongoing research of ancient stonework in New England, I came across a most curious passage in George Sheldon's 1895 The Town History of Deerfield,Ma. Volume 1, page 78. It read:

“At the foot of Bars Long Hill, just where the meadow fence crossed the road, and the bars were placed that gave the village its name, many skeletons were exposed while plowing down a bank, and weapons and implements were found in abundance. One of these skeletons was described to me by Henry Mather who saw it, as being of monstrous size — ‘the head as big as a peck basket, with double teeth all round.’ The skeleton was examined by Dr. Stephen W. Williams who said the owner must have been nearly eight feet high. In all the cases noted in this paragraph, the bodies were placed in a sitting posture, facing the east.”

I remembered reading many years earlier reports of giant skeletal discoveries from mound builder burial sites. In truth I just couldn't digest this information when I first came across it. If these reports were true, why hadn't I heard of this before? Wouldn't archaeologists and anthropologists be extremely interested in these amazing findings? Where are all the bones? So I put aside this whole strange subject for about 15 years. Then an eight-foot skeleton with double rows of teeth decided to get my attention."

Vieira tells a similar story about the origins of his interest in giants in this interview conducted by Hugh Newman (about 1:20 in) and in the first minutes of the first episode of Search for the Lost Giants (about 1:40 in on this copy). In each case he says the Deerfield account is of a skeleton with "double rows of teeth."

I’m sure the story of the account of an “eight foot skeleton with double rows of teeth” is repeated by Vieira elsewhere: it seems to have become part of his arrival story explaining his interest in giants. The problem is that it’s not true. It contains a fundamental misinterpretation of what the account from Deerfield actually says.

The 1895 Deerfield account (transcribed below and available online here) does not say the skeleton had “double rows of teeth.” Rather, it describes the skeleton has having “double teeth all around.” Those are not the same thing. As I discussed in this post and in posts about the skeletons from Ellensburg, Washington, and northern New Mexico, the phrase “double teeth all around” was commonly used in nineteenth century America to describe a set of teeth that, because of their worn state, appeared to consist entirely of “double teeth” aka molars.

The pictures to the left show a comparison of a prehistoric maxilla with heavily worn incisors and canines (source) and the palate of a living person without such heavy wear (source). I have also included a diagram of the human dentition for reference (source). Note how the heavily worn incisors and canines in the archaeological specimen (top) have a very different shape than the unworn incisors and canines of the living person (middle): as the teeth are progressively worn down, their sharply pointed cusps disappear and the biting surface becomes broader in shape. They begin to look more like grinding teeth (or “double teeth,” a 19th century synonym for molars) than cutting teeth. This is why an individual with heavily worn anterior teeth is described as having “double teeth all around.”

The phrase “double teeth all around” used to describe the Deerfield skeleton was not intended to indicate that the skeleton had concentric rows of teeth.

The Deerfield skeleton did not have “double rows of teeth,” and I wonder when and if Jim Vieira will stop making that claim. It's not accurate, and saying it over and over again does not make it so. In this case, the specific words matter.

There may be some accounts for which one can make a good case that the presence of actual “extra” teeth was being described (there are many cases today of individuals with extra teeth - it is not difficult to find them online), but I guarantee there will be many more accounts for which the interpretation of “double rows of teeth” cannot be justified under closer scrutiny. I suggest that giantologists need to go through their "evidence" for double rows of teeth. Evaluate these accounts critically in their contexts, one by one, rather than simply saying there are hundreds or thousands of them. Many of these cases of "double rows of teeth" will disappear.

Up next: Ohio.

[Excerpt from A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts, The Times when the People by Whom it was Settled, Unsettled and Resettled, by George Sheldon, 1895, pp. 78-79] [439 in my database]

Graves have been found singly or in groups in all parts of the town. On the side hill west of Old Fort, it was common, fifty years ago, to turn up Indian skulls while plowing with out disturbing any other bones. At the foot of Bars Long Hill, just where the meadow fence crossed the road, and the bars were placed which gave the village its name, many skeletons were exposed in plowing down a bank, and weapons and implements were found in abundance. One of these skeletons was described to me by Henry Mather who saw it, as being of monstrous size—" the head as big as a peck basket, with double teeth all round." Mather, who was about six feet tall, made the comparison, and says the thigh bones were about three inches longer than his own. The skeleton was examined by Dr. Stephen W. Williams, who said the owner must have been nearly eight feet high. In all the cases noted in this paragraph, the bodies had been placed in a sit ting posture, facing the east. In those that follow they were laid on the right side, as above described.

6 Comments

Here's an Easy One: A Giant with "Double Teeth All Around" from Northern New Mexico

12/13/2014

2 Comments

An 1899 story printed in the November 4 issue of the Washington Bee (transcribed below, provided as an image here) provides an account of a skeleton that was “at least seven and a half feet tall” with “double teeth all around.” The skeleton was reportedly part of a “vanished race” that inhabited the cliff dwellings along the Santa Fe River.

This account seems to have all the features that should attract the giantologists:

Giant stature? Check.

Double teeth? Check

Vanished race? Check.

Unlike the stories of giants from Ellensburg, Washington, however, this account does not seem to have become a standard piece of the evidence in the case for ancient giants. Why not? Because the details provided in the story make it clear that the skeleton in question was neither of gigantic stature nor in possession of concentric rows of teeth.

Stature

The article specifies that

“Among the bones excavated from a burial mound on the mesa were a woman’s femurs measuring nineteen inches, a length which indicates that this aboriginal giantess must have been at least seven and a half feet tall.”

So, the height estimate of 7’6” (90”) is based on a femur 19” long: stature = 4.7 x femur length? That’s pretty generous even by the standards of those looking for giants. The “rule of thumb” applied at Ellensburg was only 4 x femur length (which would come out to 6’3” in this case). If we plug the length of 19” into the same formulae I referenced in the Ellensburg post, we get stature estimates ranging from 5’4” to 6’1”. That’s a bit different from 7’6.”

The Teeth

The headline of the story proclaims “Skulls of a People That Had Double Teeth All Around.” As I discussed in this post, the phrase “double teeth all around” was commonly used in nineteenth century America to describe a set of teeth that, because of their worn state, appeared to consist entirely of “double teeth” or molars. The two discussions of the teeth in the article make it clear that this is exactly what is being described:

"He found stone implements and pottery of extreme rarity, and the bones of a race all of whose teeth were molars or grinders.”

“Look at those teeth,” said Dr. Cole, tenderly fondling the skull of the giantess. “She has no incisors, no cutting teeth, in front, as have all the other races of which I have any knowledge. She has grinders all around, and so have the other skulls. That shows they were grain-eaters rather than meat-eaters.”

You really can’t get any clearer than that: the phrase "double teeth all around" was being used specifically and intentionally to describe a dentition that appeared, because of wear, to be composed entirely of grinding teeth.

What Do Giantologists Think of This Case?

This is a good question. This is a pretty clear case of an article proclaiming a “race” with “double teeth” that contains at least one “giant.” So why isn’t this part of the standard case for ancient giants? Perhaps because this article makes it very clear that this “giant” is not actually a giant and that these “double teeth” are not anything unusual. But doesn’t dismissing this article from the case for ancient giants demonstrate that one understands the difference between “double teeth all around” and concentric rows of teeth?

There are four possibilities:

The giantologists have seen this account and don’t accept it.
The giantologists have seen this account and accept it as evidence of giants.
The giantologists have not seen this account, and now, having become aware of its existence, will accept it and start using it as evidence.
The giantologists have not seen this account, but now, having looked at it critically, will not accept it.

This story turned up in a basic newspaper search, so I am very doubtful that the giantologistis have not seen it (i.e., 3 and 4 are not likely). That leaves the first two possibilities. I’m curious to hear what the giantologists make of this account. By what rationale or criteria would it be accepted or rejected? What would happen if you applied those same standards to other, less-detailed accounts?

_____

Following is the complete text of the story from the Washington Bee (November 4, 1899). As with the Ellensburg skeletons, there may be other versions of the story out there. This account is number 214 in my database.

THE VANISHED RACE
__

A BUILDING THAT HOUSED 6,000 CLIFF DWELLERS
__

A Ruined Aboriginal City on a Cliff a Thousand Feet High –Skulls of a People That Had Double Teeth All Around—Some Remarkable Relics.

   Laden with relics of the vanished race of the Cliff Dwellers, the Rev. Dr. George L. Cole has returned from a journey to the ruined cities of Southeastern Colorado and New Mexico. Valuable results were secured by excavations in an ancient communal dwelling, as yet unnamed, which stands on the cliffs of the Santa Fe River, fourteen miles from Espanola, N. M. This is the largest pueblo yet discovered in the United States, and Dr. Cole was practically the first to visit it with scientific objects in view. He found stone implements and pottery of extreme rarity, and the bones of a race all of whose teeth were molars or grinders. Among the bones excavated from a burial mound on the mesa were a woman’s femurs measuring nineteen inches, a length which indicates that this aboriginal giantess must have been at least seven and a half feet tall.

                The cliff on which the unexplored ruins stand rises a thousand feet above the surrounding country. On one side of the isolated rocky mass is the valley of the Santa Fe River, on the other that of the Santa Clara. Up to 600 feet is a shelf which furnished a nesting place for the Cliff Dwellers of nobody knows how many centuries ago. In the soft pumice stone they burrowed dens for their families. Eventually the original shelters in the cliffs grew to be a great warren. Room after room was hewn out until the rows were four or five deep. Under the shelter of the overhanging cliff, walls were built, extending the rows of rooms. The Cliff Dwellers were sheltered from rain or storm and their homes were inaccessible for their enemies.

                Not satisfied with their rock caverns, the Cliff Dwellers climbed upward, and on the mesa, 400 feet above the shelf on which the caves opened, built a communal dwelling.

                This mesa is about three-quarters of a mile wide and a mile and half long, which cliffs all about and the best opportunities for defense. On its edge was reared a watch tower of granite, whose height Dr. Cole believes to have been not less than sixty feet. The blocks were painfully carried up the 1,000-foot cliff, for the nearest granite deposits are at a considerable distance. For greater security a wall was built across the middle of the mesa.

                On this rock platform, 1,000 feet up in the air, there stand to-day the ruins of two communal dwellings, one evidently much older than the other. The older dwelling is as yet untouched, and what little exploration of the more modern one Dr. Cole had time for amounts to a mere scratch on the surface.

                There were not less than sixteen hundred rooms in the larger building in its prime, says Dr. Cole, and probably two thousand. The building measured 240x300 feet. It was blocks of stone measuring six by six by fifteen inches, quarried from the cliffs below, and carried up by the workmen. The rooms were roofed with timber, and the walls then carried higher. In the centre was a great court, a common kitchen for all, from which radiated immense numbers of rooms. The building spread with the growth of the community until it was three stories high and the rooms stretched away twelve deep from the central court, with smaller courts here and there. Dr. Cole estimates that the population averaged about three to a room, which would make between 4,800 and 6,000 people dwelling in the immense pueblo, besides those who lived in the cliff caves.

                The rooms at the sides of the communal dwelling averaged about fourteen feet in size. On the upper stories they were mostly smaller, some being only seven by fourteen, others seven by twenty-one. Some rooms were found as large as fourteen by twenty-one feet.

                With the trophies of his summer’s explorations spread out about him, Dr. Cole has turned his parlor into an anthropological museum. One table is covered with water jugs and incense pipes, the sofa hidden under stone axes, mortars, pestles, weaving shuttles and pottery. Another table is decked with a row of grinning skulls and huge crossbones; beneath it comfortably repose all the parts of a skeleton, from the toe bones to the shoulder blades, waiting to be wired together, and strewn about are bows and arrows, baskets, jugs of twisted twigs, made water-tight by pitch; modern Indian pottery, photographs by the score, and a stump of petrified wood. The skulls are a particularly valued possession.

                “Look at those teeth,” said Dr. Cole, tenderly fondling the skull of the giantess. “She has no incisors, no cutting teeth, in front, as have all the other races of which I have any knowledge. She has grinders all around, and so have the other skulls. That shows they were grain-eaters rather than meat-eaters. The foreheads are high and the shape of the skull shows intelligence, but notice how curiously they are flattened at the back.—Lost Angeles Times.

2 Comments

The "Giant Skeletons" from Ellensburg, Washington: A Closer Look

12/9/2014

4 Comments

Newspaper reports of one or more “giant” skeletons discovered in 1912 in Ellensburg, Washington, are a common component of the case presented for the prehistoric existence of a “race” of large humans in North America. An internet search on “Ellensburg giant skeleton” will return a number of mentions/discussions of the Ellensburg remains, many reproducing portions of an article from the November 8, 1912, edition of the Ada, Oklahoma, Evening News describing “Eleven skeletons of primitive men.” Other accounts specify a single skeleton with “two rows of teeth.” In some reports the skeleton is reported to be 6’8”, in others 8’.

I have collected sixteen newspaper stories related to the Ellensburg skeleton(s). I have transcribed them all and provided them here as a pdf document. These accounts are interesting for what they can tell us about both the actual remains and how the story about the remains changed through time. SPOILER ALERT: It appears as if the Ellensburg remains consisted of, at most, two individuals (not eleven), the largest of which was probably no more than 6’2” in height. A good case can be made that the individual simply had well-worn incisors rather than the “2 rows of teeth in the upper jaw” specified in some of the headlines. The creation of an account that specified eleven individuals was probably the result of a transcription error that transformed the "11" in the dateline of the story into the quantify of skeletons specified in the first sentence.

The Stories

The sixteen published accounts of the Ellensburg remains that I have (there are certainly more, though I would guess that most are essentially the same as the accounts I have collected) can be attributed to three main “original” stories. I will call these A, B, and C.

The “A” Story

The earliest account [286, A-1] that I have located appeared in the Morning Oregonian on May 11. Given that the dateline of the story is May 10 and many shorter versions of the Ellensburg story were printed in different parts of the country on May 11, the Morning Oregonian story was probably derived or reprinted from an original May 10 story in some other newspaper in the area. Whatever the original story was, it quoted a local scientist/educator (Dr. J. P. Munson) and provided his description of the teeth:

“The teeth in front are rounded down and the jaw bone, which, Dr. Munson states, is due to eating of uncooked foods and the crushing of hard substances.”

Although the section on Dr. Munson doesn’t mention the existence of “two rows of teeth,” such an anomaly is described in the headline (“2 ROWS OF TEETH IN UPPER JAW”) and in the first paragraph (“two rows of teeth in the front of his upper jaw”).

The story provides the length of the femur (20 inches) and an estimate of height based on that length (80 inches, or 6’8”).

A story similar to the relatively long story printed in the Morning Oregonian was probably the ultimate source of most of the stories about Ellensburg that were printed on May 11 and throughout the following week. These stories include short, satirical comments on the presence of extra teeth [434, A-3; 292, A-5], a summary version of the original story [315, A-4], and nearly identical versions of a five sentence story printed in Kansas City, KS [284, A-2], Ogden, UT [316, A-2], and San Francisco, CA [317, A-2]. This very short story presumably went out over the wire.

Another version of the “A” story was printed in the Yakima Herald [436, A-6] on May 15. This story contains some of the exact same language as the Morning Oregonian story, but includes some additional details: (1) the skeleton was unearthed on Thursday (May 9); (2) the person who made the height estimate of 6’8” is identified as Dr. B. J. Moss; and (3) the existence of multiple rows of teeth is discussed further:

“One of the skulls was unusually large, and in the upper jaw has two complete and distinct rows of teeth in front, each set being perfectly formed. This was regarded as decidedly unusual by the normal school professor [Dr. Munson], who examined the skull closely. He did not regard the two rows of teeth as a racial attribute, but rather as a freak of nature.”

The Yakima Herald story also states that Dr. Munson not only visited the spot to examine the bones, but apparently unearthed the remains of a second individual.

A significant error was introduced into the “A” story sometime in late May or early June. For the first time (among the accounts I have collected), a story specifies the existence of not one or two skeletons, but 11:

“Eleven skeletons of primitive men, with foreheads sloping directly back from the eyes, and with two rows of teeth in the front of the upper jaw, have been uncovered in Craigshill, at Ellensburg, this state.”

That quote is from a June 8 story printed the Milwaukee Sentinel [318, A-8]. Note the similarities to the first paragraphs of earlier versions of the story:

“Ellensburg, Wash., May 11. –Skeletons believed to be those of pre-historic people were found today in a deep hill excavation. The skulls showed practically no forehead, sloping sharply back from the eyesockets. One skull contained a complete double row of teeth in the upper jaw. One of the skeletons was six feet eight inches in height. The hill is being explored for other skeletons.” [316, A-2]

“Ellensburg.—A skeleton of a primitive man, with forehead sloping directly back from the eyes and with two rows of teeth in the front of his upper jaw, was uncovered here when contractors were excavating for an apartment house.” [314, A-7]

It is easy to see what probably happened here. Somewhere along the way, there was a version of the story that began with something like “May 11. Skeletons of primitive men, with foreheads sloping . . .” Someone copied that version but, presumably accidentally, transformed the “11” in the date into the quantity “Eleven” at the beginning of the sentence. And thus the one or two skeletons at Ellensburg proliferated into eleven. This erroneous story was subsequently printed in several more newspapers [A-9].

The “B” Story

The story I am calling the “B” story appeared in the Ellensburg Dawn on May 16, 1912 [319, B-1]. This would have been the first opportunity to write about the skeleton in this local newspaper, which was only published on Thursdays. This story contains some of the same language seen in some of the “A” stories (e.g., “eating uncooked foods and the crushing of hard substances with the teeth”) but contains additional sections that were probably added by a local reporter. This story reports that the remains were unearthed on Friday (May 10), which would be consistent the earlier story in the Morning Oregonian.

The “C” Story

The “C” story is a completely new story about Ellensburg. The earliest version of the story I have [435, C-1], is from the Evening Herald (Klamath Falls, Oregon) of May 17. This story describes observations of the Ellensburg remains made by L. L. Sharp, identified as “Chief of the General Land Office Field Division.” Mr. Sharp estimates the individual to have been 8’ tall. He describes the teeth:

“The jaw is remarkable, and contains many teeth, chief among which are the massive grinders. These are worn down, probably from the habit of the man eating nuts, grasses and other food in a rough state.”

A version of this story was printed on September 4 in the Morning Review (Spokane, WA). That story specifies the source as the Portland Telegram.

Height: How Tall Was The Individual?

Unlike many “giant” accounts, the Ellensburg stories provide a basis for evaluating the actual height of the living individual: the length of the femur. In all cases where this information was provided, it was stated that the femur is 20 inches (50.8 cm) long. In the stories where the femur length was provided, the height of the individual was estimated at six feet eight inches, or 80 inches (i.e., approximately four times the length of the femur). In the May 15 story from the Yakima Herald (number 436 in my database), it is specified that the height estimate was made by a Dr. B. J. Moss using the conversion of height = 4x femur length.

A May 17 story in the Klamath Falls, Oregon, Evening Herald quotes a person named L. L. Sharp (identified as the “Chief of the General Land Office Field Division) as saying that the skeleton “indicated a man to my mind at least eight feet high.” No specific basis is given for this estimate.

If we assume that the femur measurement of 20 inches is accurate, it is possible to estimate the height of the individual using equations that are based on much more data than were available in the early 1900s. Height estimates derived using various formulae range between 5’7” and 6’4”, with more recent formula returning the shortest height estimates.

The more recent formulae for estimated height based on the length of the femur were produced using much more thoughtful analysis and by incorporating data from many more individuals than the “four times the femur length” estimate generated by Dr. Moss. It is reasonable to conclude that the original estimate of 6’8” (based on the femur length) was too high, as was the “to my mind” estimate of 8’ provided by L. L. Sharp. The actual height of the individual was probably closer to 6’ or less.

The Teeth

The newspaper accounts provide several pieces of information, sometimes apparently conflicting, about the teeth of the individual. The headline of the earliest story (Morning Oregonian, May 11) reads “2 ROWS OF TEETH IN UPPER JAW,” while other stories make no mention of multiple rows of teeth. The stories that quote Dr. J. P. Munson note that “The teeth in the front are worn almost down to the jaw bones . . . due to eating uncooked foods and crushing hard substances with the teeth.” The articles quoting L. L. Sharp make no mention of “double rows of teeth” but do describe the “massive grinders” as “worn down, probably from the habit of the man eating nuts, grasses and other food in a rough state.”

One story [436] does elaborate on the description of the teeth:

“One of the skulls was unusually large, and in the upper jaw has two complete and distinct rows of teeth in front, each set being perfectly formed. This was regarded as decidedly unusual by the normal school professor [Dr. Munson], who examined the skull closely. He did not regard the two rows of teeth as a racial attribute, but rather as a freak of nature.”

There are two main possibilities here: (1) the skeleton actually did have multiple rows of teeth in the front of the upper jaw; or (2) the description of there being “two rows of teeth” was the result of confusion about a description of the worn front teeth as “double teeth.” As I discussed in this post, teeth worn flat by grinding (as the teeth of the Ellensburg skeleton reportedly were) were often erroneously identified as “double teeth" (molars) no matter where they were in the mouth. The phrase “double teeth all around” was commonly used in the nineteenth century to describe individuals with such a high degree of tooth wear that it appeared as if all of the teeth in the mouth were molars.

As the Google Ngram above shows, the use of the term "double teeth" was in decline in the early 1900s. It is easy (for me, anyway) to imagine how a description by one person of “double teeth in front” (meaning molar teeth in front) could be mistakenly “translated” into a newspaper headline of “two rows of teeth.”

Alternatively, it is possible that the individual really did have some extra anterior teeth (incisors and/or canines) in the upper jaw. If that is true, does it mean the individual was part of a “race” of giants? No.

Why the Giantologists Got It Wrong

A skeleton was accidentally discovered in Ellensburg, Washington, in May of 1912. It was probably the remains of a relatively large individual (or else it wouldn’t have attracted much attention), but was not a “giant” unless we’re going to expand our definition of that term to include anyone over 6’ tall. The individual may have had some “extra” anterior teeth, but more likely simply had a high degree of tooth wear on his entire dentition. That was not unusual among prehistoric Native Americans.

The various accounts from Ellensburg, viewed separately, present a somewhat confusing and contradictory picture. In this post, Bill Vieira (one of the stars of Search for the Lost Giants) even stated that the accounts from Ellensburg were of two completely different finds of skeletons! When a larger number of stories about Ellensburg is considered together, it is easy to understand the discovery and to see where and why discrepancies in accounts arise and proliferate. Perhaps giantologists should make a habit of looking more critically at the stories that constitute their “evidence” and attempting to understand their context.

Please let me know if I’ve gotten anything wrong of if you have access to any stories about Ellensburg other than those I have collected and discussed here. My analysis certainly predicts the existence of a few “missing links” in the chain. It would be nice to gather more stories a get a more complete picture of the Ellensburg skeleton telephone game.

References

Dupertuis, C. Wesley, and John A. Hadden, Jr. 1951. On the Reconstruction of Stature from Long Bones. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 9:15-54.

Genoves, Santiago. 1967. Proportionality of the Long Bones and their Relation to Stature among Mesoamericans. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 26:67-78.

Pearson, K. 1899. IV. Mathematical Contributions to the Theory of Evolution. V. On the Reconstruction of the Stature of Prehistoric Races. Phil. Trans. Anthrop., n.s. 6:373-380.

Sciulli, Paul W., and Myra J. Giesen. 1993. Brief Communication: An Update on Stature Estimation in Prehistoric Native Americans of Ohio. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 92:395-399.

Steele, D. Gentry, and Thomas W. McKern. 1969. A Method for Assessment of Maximum Long Bone Length and Living Stature from Fragmentary Long Bones. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 31:215-228.

Trotter, Mildred, and Goldine C. Gleser. 1958. A Re-evaluation of Estimation of Stature Based on Measurements of Stature Taken During Life and of Long Bones After Death. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 16:79-123.

4 Comments

The Modern Mythology of Giants Facebook Page: Why the Heck Not.

12/8/2014

0 Comments

I've gotten a nice response to my recent posts on giants and pseudo-science, mostly from professional and avocational archaeologists. It has been fun so far, and I hope to keep some momentum. I just started a Facebook page called The Modern Mythology of Giants as a way to try to reach broader, non-archaeologist audience. I will post links there to everything relevant that I write here. Please "like" the page if you're interested in following along through Facebook, and please don't hesitate to jump in if you've got something to contribute.

0 Comments

<<Previous

$502 Reward for Photographs of Lost Giants: The Skeletons from Delavan, Wisconsin

A Note to Giantologists: "Double Teeth All Around" is Not the Same Thing as "Double Rows of Teeth"

How About "Three Rows of Teeth"? A Closer Look at the Description of Skeletons from Amelia Island, Florida

"Giant" Humbugs, Past and Present

Mastodon to Man: An 1845 "Giant" from Tennessee

More Misinterpretations: "Giants with Double Rows of Teeth" from Ohio

Words Matter: "Double Rows of Teeth," Jim Vieira, and the Deerfield Skeleton

Here's an Easy One: A Giant with "Double Teeth All Around" from Northern New Mexico

The "Giant Skeletons" from Ellensburg, Washington: A Closer Look

The Modern Mythology of Giants Facebook Page: Why the Heck Not.

Archives

Categories