GIGANTOPITHECUS
Click and drag photo to resize. Script from The Java Script Source
(Photo: Meganthropus teeth on the left, modern man's on the right)
Following is an excerpt from "The Ape That Was" and discusses the controversy over whether "modern manlike" appearing remains of Meganthropus and Gigantopithecus were those of man or ape.
"Since Neanderthal Man is usually considered as a "race," the possibility that racial characteristics of this kind could in fact be the result of pituitary or other glandular disturbance, is greatly strengthened by the case of Maurice Tillet.
We thus have, in addition to the influences of diet and eating habits, the possible influences of glandular abnormality. It is conceivable that the giantism which has been found to characterize some early fossils of man, could be traced to the same factor. In this case history as opposed to genetics, in Portmann's sense of the terms, would possibly explain Gigantopithecus and Meganthropus, and so forth, as well as the grossness of some European forms; and any attempt to fit them into a genetic series would be a waste of time."The Supposed Evolution of the Human Skull
"According to Ciochon et al. (1990), Gigantopithecus blacki was 10 feet tall and weighed 1,200 pounds. This is speculative, since it is with some uncertainty that one reconstructs such a massive creature from a few jaw bones and teeth, however many. The way they arrived at this picture was first to estimate the size of the head from the jaw, and then to use a head/body ratio of 1:6.5 in order to determine the body size. For comparison they cite a head/body ratio of 1:8 for the Australopithecus afarensis specimen known as 'Lucy'.
The more conservative ratio for Gigantopithecus was arrived at out of consideration of the massive jaw as an adaptation to the mastication of fibrous plant matter (probably bamboo). Gigantopithecus was probably proportionally a markedly big jawed creature.
For the head shape they based their assumptions on the orangutan, since evolutionarily they place Gigantopithecus on the same line as the orangutan, finding a common ancestor for them both in Sivapithecus.
However, the orangutan could not serve as a model for the body, since it is unlikely that a 1,200 pound ape would be as arboreal. Therefore they chose the largest primates known, the gorilla and the extinct giant baboon Theropithecus oswaldi, as their models for the body.
(Photo:Rex Gilroy with a twenty five pound hand axe found near Bathurst, Aus.)They gave Gigantopithecus an intermembral index 108 (gorilla at 120 + Theropithecus at 95 divide by 2 = 108 rounded up - very scientific!) (Ciochon et al., 1990). "the average male Gigantopithecus had a skull that measured eighteen inches from the bottom of the jaw to the highest point of the sagittal crest (a male gorilla, for comparison, has a skull ten inches high)"
"Meanwhile, however, Weidenreich, (the "co-discoverer" of Gigantopithecus)who had retreated from Beijing to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, set about studying plaster casts of the four teeth. Because of the unusually large size of a few of the Homo erectus specimens from Java, Weidenreich came up with the notion that there had been a period of gigantism in human evolution, and that modern humans were the diminutive descendants of these giants.
In Apes, Giants, and Man, published in 1946, he argued that the Gigantopithecus teeth were humanlike, and that von Koenigswald had been mistaken in considering the animal an ape rather than a member of the human family tree. During von Koenigswald's wartime internment, Weidenreich's views became widely accepted."... The Ape That Was
OTHER GIANT EVIDENCES
An extract and photograph from the British S t r a n d magazine of December 1895, reprinted in W. G. Wood-Martin's Book, Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland, mentions a fossilized giant that had been found during mining operations in County Antrim, Ireland:
Pre-eminent among the most extraor dinary articles ever held by a railway company is the fossilized Irish giant, which is at this moment lying at the London and North-Western Railway Company's Broad street goods depot, and a photograph of which is repro duced here...
This monstrous figure is reputed to have been dug up by a Mr. Dyer whilst prospecting for iron ore in County Antrim.
The principal measurements are: entire length, 12 ft 2 in.; girth of chest, 6 ft 6 in.; and length of arms, 4 ft 6 in. There are six toes on the right foot. The gross weight is 2 tons 15 cwt.; so that it took half a dozen men and a powerful crane to place this article of lost property in position for the Strand magazine artist.
Dyer, after showing the giant in Dublin, came to England with his queer find and exhibited it in Liverpool and Manchester at sixpence a head, attracting scientific men as well as gaping sightseers.
Business increased and the showman induced a man named Kershaw to purchase a share in the concern. In 1876, Dyer sent this giant from Manchester to London by rail; the sum of £4 2s 6d being charged for carriage by the company, but never paid.
Evidently Kershaw knew nothing of the removal of the 'show', for when he discovered it he followed in hot haste, and, through a firm of London solici tors, moved the Court of Chancery to issue an order restraining the compa ny from parting with the giant, until the action between Dyer and himself to determine the ownership was dis posed of. The action was never brought to an issue.
Unfortunately (as far as this writer knows), nothing more was ever heard of the Antrim giant or its owners.
Giant Human Bones Found in Middle East
Joe Taylor of the Mount Click and drag photo to resize. Script from The Java Script Source
Blanco Fossil Museum sculpted this femur after receiving following letter:
Dear Christian Friends, I was born and lived in the Middle East from 1938 to 1968. I was Ain-Tell and Euphrates water works Engineer and was very interested in archaeology and history and had some very interesting findings, some of which may sound unbelievable.
I have brought with me a few silex arrow heads, etc., from the very battle-field where King Nebuchadnezzar and Pharo-Necho’s armies fought. And what about the giants mentioned in Genesis?
In south-east Turkey in the Euphrates Valley and in Homs and at Uran-Zohra, tombs of about four meters long once existed, but now roads and other construction work has destroyed the spots. At two places, when unearthed because of construction work, the leg bones were measured about 120 cms (47.24 inches).
It sounds unbelievable. I have lived with my family at Ain-Tell for more than 14 years at the very spot where King Nebuchadnezzar had his headquarters after the battle of Charcamish, where I dug the graves of kings’ officers and found their skeletons like sponge, and when you touch them they become like white ash, with spears and silex and obsidian tools and ammunition laying by.
This giant stood 14-16 ft tall. In his book Fossils Facts & Fantasies, Joe Taylor cites several accounts of giant human skeletons or depictions discovered in Egypt, Italy, Patagonia in Argentina, and the western US.
Giant Footprint Found in Solid Granite in 2002
A Ramona man has found what looks to be a footprint from Bigfoot. The giant fossilized footprint suggests the yeti could have once lived in the nearby mountains.
It's one heck of a climb to see the footprint; more than a thousand feet up a rugged mountain in the Cleveland National Forest. And James Snyder's house sits right at the bottom.
"I go out of my way to make a slip trail where nobody else has been and I was actually looking for gold," said Snyder.
That was back in February. But instead of finding gold on Gowers Mountain, Snyder found a giant fossilized footprint, at least it looks like one, embedded in solid granite.
The footprint was found in what becomes a creek bed during the rainy season. It looks as though something big crossed the creek a long time ago leaving its footprint behind.
What made it and when? Who knows. But Snyder is convinced it was a Yeti or sasquatch or Bigfoot. "When I saw it I told my buddy, I said I found Bigfoot up there," said Snyder.
He hopes someone who knows about this sort of thing will contact him. "But the neat thing about it to me, is most of your Bigfoots, or their casts or whatnot, come out of snow that you can't go back and check, or muddy soil, where as soon as you get a hard rain, well that's gone too.
This is, well we can look at it. We can study it. We can bring scientists here," said Snyder. But it won't be easy. The terrain at the top of Mt. Gowers looks like Mars, and it's about as hard to get to.
You can actually go see the footprint if you're prepared to walk an hour and a half, and that's only if you know where you're going. But it's certainly worth the trip. That is, if you're interested in seeing one really BIG foot.
Giant Human Legbone and Kneecap in Solid Rock
"At times, the discoveries made revealed "mysteries upon mysteries." In July, 1877, four prospectors were looking for gold and silver outcroppings in a desolate, hilly area near the head of Spring Valley, not far from Eureka, Nevada.
Scanning the rocks, one of the men spotted something peculiar projecting from a high ledge. Climbing up to get a better look, the prospector was surprised to find a human legbone and knee cap sticking out of solid rock. He called to his companions, and together they dislodged the oddity with picks. Realizing they had a most unusual find, the men brought it into Eureka, where it was placed on display.
The stone in which the bones were embedded was a hard, dark red quartzite, and the bones themselves were almost black with carbonization - indicative of great age. When the surrounding stone was carefully chipped away, the specimen was found to be composed of a leg bone broken off four inches above the knee, the knee cap and joint, the lower leg bones, and the complete bones of the foot.
Several medical doctors examined the remains, and were convinced that anatomically they had indeed once belonged to a human being, and a very modern-looking one. But an intriguing aspect of the bones was their size: from knee to heel they measured 39 inches. Their owner in life had thus stood over 12 feet tall.
Compounding the mystery further was the fact that the rock in which the bones were found was dated geologically to he era of the dinosaurs, the Jurassic - over 185 million years old. The local papers ran several stories on the marvelous find, and two museums sent investigators to see if any more of the skeleton could be located.
Unfortunately, nothing else but the leg and foot existed in the rock." Strange Relics from the Depths of the Earth--Jochmans
(Photos from
A comparison of the megatools from the six occupation sites soon showed considerable stylisation in the hand-axes, knives, adzes and other tools, forming two distinct tool-type culture periods. These have since been named the "Late" and "Early Phase", the "Early Phase" being the oldest and most primitive, the "Late Phase" showing more advanced styles of workmanship. ...the strata in which the "Early Phase" tools are found date from around 60,000 back to 180,000 years BP.
Giant stone-age man stone artefacts (implements) have been found in Central Western NSW Southern & far Northern Qld. These implements consist of hand axes, clubs, pounders, adzes, knives & other tools often ranging in weight from 8 to 36 lbs or more.