The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America
By Richard Dewhurst
Books by Richard Dewhurst
The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America:
The Missing Skeletons and the Great Smithsonian Cover-Up
Richard Dewhurst
Please welcome for February 2014 Author of the Month, writer and researcher Richard Dewhurst. Richard J. Dewhurst is the Emmy Award–winning writer of the HBO feature documentary Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. A graduate of NYU with degrees in journalism, film, and television, he has written and edited for the History Channel, the Arts & Entertainment Channel, PBS, Fox Television and Fox Films, ABC News, TNT, Paramount Pictures, and the Miami Herald.
His new book The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America, meticulously chronicles the missing giant skeletons of one of the Smithsonian’s greatest cover-ups.
Meet Richard this month on the AoM Message Boards http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/list.php?f=8
The eyes of that species of extinct Giant, whose bones fill the Mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now."
- Abraham Lincoln, 1848
OF CONEHEADS AND KINGS
In many respects the West Virginia Mounds are key to understanding the true story of the Giants who once ruled America. Not only are the West Virginia mound sites in Charleston, Wheeling and Moundsville, some of the most significant in size and number in United States, but in 1883, the Smithsonian dispatched a team of archaeologists to the South Charleston Mound led by Colonel Morris of the Smithsonian to conduct an extensive dig of the 50 mounds they found there and issue a detailed report. The report shows quite clearly that the team uncovered numerous giants, one of which was 7’6”tall and decorated with six heavy copper bracelets on each wrist and on his shoulder were three large plates of mica. In another mound, they found a circle of ten skeletons surrounding another giant skeleton, as well as underground vaults, various copper and mica ornaments, religious items, pipes and spearheads. Then, at a depth of nine feet, another giant skeleton was found in the remains of a bark coffin and it was noted in their report that this giant had a skull, which was of “the compressed or flat-head type.” In other words, this skeleton exhibited conehead characteristics similar to those found in South America and Egypt. As digs progressed in other parts of the state, archaeologists in Wheeling, WV found another grouping a giants ranging in height from 6’7” to 7’6” and also displaying unusual skull formations with low foreheads that sloped back gradually, “while the back part of the head is very prominent, much more so than the skulls of people living today.” Adjacent to these finds, an eight-mile wall and a hilltop temple were also found in Marshall County on Mount Carbon. And further down the Cheat River in 1774 settlers found what they dubbed “The Giant Town,” with numerous gigantic skeletons the most significant being that of an 8-foot tall male.
Giant Queen
THE WHITE GIANTS
Extremely ancient human remains have been found throughout New York State and New England that date back to at least 9,000 B.C. In a report from the Syracuse Herald American in 1983, anthropologists from the Buffalo Museum of Science, 1,400 artifacts were dug up from a site called Phoenix Hill. In a county historical report called “A History of Livingston County, New York,” published in 1824, reported that in 1811, an Indian Mound on Mount Morris, rude medals, pipes and articles were uncovered in association with the remains of a giant “of enormous size, the jawbone of which was so large that Adam Holslander placed it, mask-like over his own chin and jaw.”
In 1871, a newspaper report from Cayuga NY reports that 200 skeletons were removed from a collapsed mound on the banks of the Grand River. These skeletons were said to be in a perfect state of preservation and that “the men were of gigantic stature, some of them measuring nine feet, very few of them being less than seven feet.” Later the report notes that a lost city was found on a farm in Dunville NY, in association with two tons of charcoal and various implements indicating the site of an ancient forge. Further digging revealed axes, tomahawks, beads and several smoking pipes, some engraved with dogs heads. Giant skeletons were also unearthed “the skulls of which are of an enormous size and all manner of shape, some being twice the size of a normal human.”
In addition to the human skeletons found in NY State, there is also the famous case of “The Cardiff Giant,” a white alabaster-like statue of an 11-foot man which showed an exposed penis and hieroglyphic inscriptions. This statue caused a world-wide sensation and was exhibited in New York City to thousands of paying customers before it was declared a fake by the NY newspapers, despite the fact that scholars from Harvard and elsewhere insisted that the statue was genuine.
THE PEARLY QUEEN AND HER COURT
For sheer mind-blowing diversity, the discoveries across the state of Ohio may be the richest and most unusual in the country. Not only are there numerous finds of giants 8-10 feet tall, but there are also related finds that are equally astonishing. Among the most significant are the Cincinnati tablets inscribed with hieroglyphs, textiles that resemble those from Assyria and Babylon, a skull examined by a surgeon in Cincinnati that exhibits evidence of brain surgery that “shows knowledge of practical surgery scarcely excelled at the present day,” as well as evidence of metallurgy, forges, slag, iron and even saws. In a mound in Chillicothe, a metal perforated bird was found, in addition to numerous carved pipes, one even depicting a duck riding on a fish. At the same mound site in Chillicothe dozens of skeletons were found wearing copper masks, while at a related site in the same area at a depth of 14 feet “a massive skeleton was found encased in copper armor.” Even more astonishing, in an excavation for a house in West Hickory, workers exhumed “an enormous iron helmet corroded with rust.” In another dig, performed in 1889 in Southern Ohio, a giant was found buried with the bones of panther and another with 147 bone and shell beads made from Conch and Pyrula shells imported from the Atlantic Ocean was unearthed.
As amazing as all these finds are, the discoveries in Newark Ohio deserve special mention. As reported on the Ohio State University website, several incised and engraved stones with writing and hieroglyphs were discovered, including the famous Newark “Holy Stone,” with a condensed version of the Ten Commandments or Decalogue engraved on it in a peculiar form of post-Exilic square Hebrew letters. Also in Newark, the magnificent skeleton of an 8-foot tall Queen bedecked in opulent copper jewelry and pearls was uncovered, while in Centralia another giant was found encased in copper armor, his mouth stuffed with pearls “of immense size.” In addition, in Bainbridge Ohio, four bodies were found wrapped in pearl-covered robes, while in a related find in the area one mound yielded two bushels of pearls containing over 500,000 individual fresh-water pearls, surrounding two giants wearing copper helmets, one provided with a copper nose. In Cartersville, a team from the Smithsonian found a vault with “the skeleton of a giant 7’2.” This skeleton had waist-length jet-black hair. Surrounding this giant, the Smithsonian team found more bodies and noted in their report that “the bodies had been prepared after the manner of mummies and upon the stones that covered the vault were carved inscriptions.” All this evidence was shipped to the Smithsonian and in the report it noted “this is the most interesting collection ever found in America.”
COPPER-HELMETED GIANTS RULE
There have been a number of intriguing finds in Indiana over the years including the discovery of eight skeletons, one clad in copper armor, buried in a perfect circle. In 1888, the Logan Grey’s, a military group led by A.M. Jones were conducting military exercises on a small island on Eagle Lake near Warsaw, Indiana. Under a flat stone, they discovered a hole that led to the entrance to a secret cave that was twenty-five-feet long, fifteen feet wide and eight feet deep. Inside was the skeleton of a 6’9” giant buried next to a stream that led to what was called a sacred pool. In 1889, near Kewanna, standing stones were found on a mound and underneath another giant was unearthed, while in Whitlock, Indiana another giant was found in association with a group buried in a seating position. One of the largest finds on record was reported in “A History of Jennings County Indiana,” published in 1885, it was reported that in 1881 a nine-foot tall skeleton was unearthed in a local mound, along with the body of a blond-haired child. And finally, in 1912 an enormous jaw was dug up, that had double-rows of teeth (double dentitions), a unique characteristic of some giants discovered in other parts of the country as well.
THE GREAT PYRAMID MOUNDS OF ILLINOIS
The size and scale of the Cahokia Mound Complex has been compared in scope and grandeur to the Great Pyramid. The site is located at a major confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois Rivers, directly across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis. At its height is was composed of 120 major mounds (of which 80 remain today) and a city estimated at 40-50,000 people, making it the largest city in the United States until Philadelphia overtook it in the 18th Century. Monk’s Mound is the largest earthwork in the complex and it measures 100 feet tall, with an original base of 1,000 feet. These even measurements in feet have raised the interest of alternative historians, as well as its numerous astronomical alignments that show great similarities to alignments at Stonehenge and Teotihuacan, among numerous significant ancient sites. During excavations south of Monk’s Mound, archaeologists even found a series of wooden post-holes that they called “an American Woodhenge,” which they likened to Stonehenge and Woodhenge in England.
In addition, during excavation of Mound 72, a ridge-top burial mound south of Monks Mound, archaeologists found the remains of a man in his 40s buried on a bed of more than 20,000 marine-shell disc beads arranged in the shape of a falcon, with the bird's head appearing beneath and beside the man's head, and its wings and tail beneath his arms and legs. Archeologists also recovered more than 250 other skeletons from Mound 72. Scholars believe almost 62 percent of these were sacrificial victims, based on signs of ritual execution and method of burial. Although these were the finds revealed to the public after the official 1922 excavation, a previous unofficial dig at the site un-covered hundreds more skeletons, some giant in nature, which have all disappeared from the historical record. Between 2002 and 2010, a major copper workshop was discovered with forges and annealing methods for hardening copper, which included many examples of highly sophisticated repousse copper plates. In an earlier related find at the site by the Smithsonian two 10x11 inch sandstone tablets were discovered which contained inscriptions in “Roman-like capital letters.” These tablets were shipped to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. “where they are to be held for scientific investigation.”
In 1930 Don Dickson discovered what was described at the time as the largest Neolithic burial site in the world, 90 miles south of Peoria at the intersection of the Illinois River. Working with the University of Chicago, Dickson unearthed 248 of the skeletons, for an open-air museum. The site was estimated to have over three thousand burials, many of them of an unusual and gigantic stature. At its height, the Dickson Mounds Museum attracted 75,000 visitors a year, who were able to view the skeletons en situ as they were uncovered by the archaeologists. In 1990, local Indian tribes had the site closed and the remains re-buried in their tribal cemetery, even though there is no genetic link between the local Indians and the remains of the Mound Builders.
TO SAVE THE MOUNDS
At the turn of the 20th Century there was a national awareness of the Mound Builder’s and their extensive earthworks that far exceeded contemporary consciousness on the subject. Since the majority of the country still lived an agrarian lifestyle, awareness of the mounds was reinforced by daily contact with the actual sites themselves. Current estimates put the number of known American mounds at well over 100,000.
In 1905, Congress was petitioned to save the mound builder sites from destruction. As was noted in the discussion of the Cahokia Mounds, close to half the mounds in that complex were destroyed by farmers and city construction. In the case of Cahokia, it took until the 1964 for that complex to receive official protection as a National Historic Landmark. Similar tales were told across the nation, since the majority of these sites were on private lands and the government offered no compensation for preservation of the mounds. To compound matters, the Mound Builders still have no official standing as an indigenous Native American People, as no official descendents of the Mound Builders have ever been recognized by the courts of the United States.
Catalina Giants
Click for a larger view
THE GREAT COPPER KINGDOM
When reconstructing the true history of the mound builders in America, there is no more important place than Isle Royal, situated in Lake Superior, just off the Keweenaw Peninsula in northern Michigan. Because of a freak volcanic event that twisted the copper-bearing bedrock above the water line, thus allowing all the sulphur impurities to burn away in the open air, the copper found at Isle Royal is the purest found anywhere in the world. The entire region is scarred by ancient mine pits and trenches up to 20 feet deep. Carbon-dating testing of wood remains found in sockets of copper artifacts indicates that some are at least 5700 years old, while other open digs around the area have been dated to 8-10,000 years old. The most conservative estimates calculate that during a ten thousand year period, over 500,000 tons of copper was taken from the mines. At the other end of the spectrum in “Prehistoric Copper Mining in the Lake Superior Region,” published in 1961, Drier and Du Temple estimated that over 1.5 billion pounds of copper had been mined from the region. Since traditional researchers refuse to analyze European copper for its probable Michigan signature, no one has been able to account for where all this copper ended up. That it was traded and used extensively across the United States by the Mound Builders there is no question. But this is no way can account for the magnitude of copper taken out of these unique mines. What researchers have determined is a continuous history mining activity that begun in 8,000 B.C. and then abruptly ended around 1500 B.C., contemporaneous with the volcanic explosion on Cretan Thera (Santorini). Since rock-cut pictures of Cretan trading vessels have been found in the area, this lends credence to the Cretan connection in North America at a very early date. In addition, researchers have also determined that copper mining activity resumed again around 900 A.D. This date corresponds perfectly with related evidence of a Viking presence in the area around that same date.
The Iowa Mastodon Pipe and Ancient Hieroglyphs
On the scale of highly-anomalous out of place artifacts (OOPs), the Iowa Mastdon and Mammoth pipes have to be ranked right up at the very top. What are we to make of these undeniably authentic artifacts? Then, when you add the Davenport Stela to the mix, things get even stranger. The stele was found in an Indian Mound in 1877 and according to Harvard Professor Barry Fell, the stela contains writing in Egyptian, Iberian-Punic and Libyan. The Smithsonian, of course, says the three stela’s are fake. What the Smithsonian cannot say is fake are the over 100 skeletons that institution found in Poplar Bluff, including a chief who measured seven feet eight inches tall. Then there are the discoveries of the Iowa Archaeological Survey in association with the WPA, who uncovered 35 houses averaging 30 square feet, or the 75 foot temple mound that was found adjacent to the houses, or the eleven skeletons found buried in a circle with another chief in the center, this one 7’5” tall or the double-toothed giant exhibited in 1900 in a Williamsburg store window. All in all, Iowa is one strange state and the finds there are some of the most unusual found anywhere in the United States.
America’s Nasca and the Pictoral Mounds of the Giants
As was the case with Michigan’s copper mines, the most unique aspect of Wisconsin’s Mound Building culture, is not the plethora of giants unearted in the area, but the amazing animal effigy mounds that covered the state like a blanket of woodland imagery. It has been estimated that in one county alone in Wisconsin, there were originally over 10,000 effigy mounds. It is no exagaration to say that Wisconsin was an ancient version of the Nazca plateau in South America, which is famous world-wide for the thousands of animal images cut into the bedrock there. The images that covered Wisconsin were endless and covered the gamut from human forms, to snakes, lizards, foxes, rabbits, fish and mammoths. Unfortunately no official attempt has ever been made to save these from destruction and at this point in time the vast majority of mounds that once blanketed the state have been destroyed.
On the more traditional front, archaelogists have uncovered evidence of advanced culture and mining activities in the state, dating back to at least 9,000 B.C. At sites like Oconto and Osceola, copper artifacts including spears, arrow-points, knives, adzes, gouges, fishhooks and harpoons have been found in association with textiles, drilled beads and even bone flutes that can still be played.
In one notable case, it was reported that an 8-foot tall giant was unearthed near Pelican Lake, while in another report from Westport, giant burials were found in association with ten-pound axes and an eight-foot high wall, which was 15-feet thick and ran across a river embankment for 1500 feet. It was noted that the wall was made from hard red bricks, some of an immense size. In the woods nearby the shore, a mound was opened which contained a giant buried with several rolls of textiles and a finely-finished grooved stone axe.
The Lost Kingdom of the Red-Haired, Blue-Eyed Indians
The Mandan Indians are generally found in North Dakota and since their first contact with French explorers in 1738, this blond and red-haired, blue-eyed tribe has been the source of intense speculation as to their European origins. In 1796, the Mandan were visited by the Welsh explorer John Evans, who was hoping to find proof that their language contained Welsh words. Evans had arrived in St. Louis 2 years prior, and after being imprisoned for a year, was hired by Spanish authorities to lead an expedition to chart the upper Missouri. Evans spent the winter of 1796–97 with the Mandan but found no evidence of any Welsh influence. In July 1797 he wrote to Dr. Samuel Jones, "Thus having explored and charted the Missurie for 1,800 miles and by my Communications with the Indians this side of the Pacific Ocean from 35 to 49 degrees of Latitude, I am able to inform you that there is no such People as the Welsh Indians.” In 1804, Lewis and Clark spent time visiting with the tribe and it was here that they met Sacagawea, who later aided them as a scout and translator. Then even later in 1833, western artist George Catlin, who was also convinced of their European roots, lived with the tribe and painted their village life and religious ceremonies. Although traditional archaeologists reject outright any European heritage for this mysterious tribe, no definitive Haplogroup X testing has ever been done on any of the surviving tribe members and until scientific blood work is performed, all theories as to their original origins are purely based on superstition, academic bias and ill-founded opinions.
SACRED POOLS, SECRET CAVES AND THE HALLS OF THE MOUNTAIN KINGS
In all my extensive research into the hidden history of giants in America, the most detailed, wide-ranging and colorful account I came across was “The Natural And Aboriginal History of Tennessee,” by Dr. John Haywood, which was first published in 1823. Haywood combines an exhaustive first person account of his many astonishing discoveries in combination with an excellent overview of the previous historical finds in the area. Among his many amazing discoveries are accounts of giants found in a walled spring, caves with stones that rolled away containing more giants, and four upright standing stones that formed a square box inside of which was the body of another giant. About ten miles from Sparta a skeleton 8-feet tall was found in association with perfectly smooth and round stones and an ancient child’s toy set.
Perhaps his most amazing finds were the tiny mounds that contained caskets of the three-foot tall “moon-eyed children,” who are the pygmies that were said to accompany the giants. The three-foot tall pygmies were originally said to have come from North Carolina and legends say that were mischievous and only liked to come out at night. Cherokee lore recounts that they waged war against these Moon-eyed people and drove them from their home in Hiwassee, a village in Murphy, North Carolina, and west into Tennessee.
In addition to numerous giants and pygmies, Haywood discovered grave goods including bloody axes, a stone trumpet hunting horn, carved mastodon bones, soapstone statues and pipes. In a cave on the south side of the Cumberland River, a secret room was discovered that was 25 feet square and showed sign of engineering, as it contained a large rock-cut well, as well the skeleton of a blond-haired giant. Outside of Sparta, a standing stone was discovered that marked the burial of more over-sized skeletons. In another burial at the top of the nearby hill, carved ivory beads were found of the “finest and best quality,” while in a dig at Ohio Falls Roman coins depicting Claudius II and Maximinus II were uncovered. In 1794, it is reported that an ancient furnace was discovered and in association with it a bar of iron was discovered, as well as annealed and hardened copper implements.
OF MOON-EYED CHILDREN AND MICA
Although North and South Carolina are not generally known for their ancient mound builder cultures, it turns out that both states have a long and colorful history of giants, missing skeletons, pygmies called “moon-eyed children,” and ancient sheet mica mines that were used to supply major mound builder sites across the North American continent.
Some of the oldest spear heads ever found were discovered in the Pee Dee Basin in the South Carolina counties of Florence, Darlington, Marlboro and Marion counties. The oldest of these spear point are of Clovis origin and have been carbon-dated to 10,000 B.C. In addition, these points were found in association with Mammoth and Mastodon kills. In addition to the spear points, some of the oldest pottery every discovered comes from South Carolina. It is what is called “fiber-tempered” pottery and it was found in association with polished stone tools, various scrapers, projectile points and lithic material.
In North Carolina, significant finds were made in the Yadkin Valley of Caldwell County in1883 that included one group of four in seated positions and two lying on their backs. One of the recumbent skeletons was of a man who was reported to be seven feet tall. At another site in the North Carolina foothills, 26 skeletons were found in unusual burial positions associated with other mound builder sites. In this case, 16 skeletons were found in seated, squatting and prone positions in the center of which was a skeleton standing upright in a large stone cist.
In association with the fabled ancient copper mines found in the Northern Peninsula of Michigan, the mica mines of North Carolina are the most significant natural resource site in North America. The importance of mica to the mound builder culture cannot be over-emphasized. Throughout the United States and Mexico, numerous mound builder burials have revealed a plethora of mica jewelry, ornaments and decorations, the majority of which can be linked to these mica mines that archaeologists estimate have been worked since ancient pre-historic times.
The Poverty Point Metropolis
Although the Cahokia mound complex near St. Louis is considered the major mound site on the Mississippi River, the Poverty Point earth works in Louisiana, is the most ancient temple site and trading center on the Mississippi River. As the vast extent of this site has been uncovered, its primacy as the major trading site of the ancient America’s has gradually gained credence with traditional scholars. Poverty Point is constructed entirely of earthworks. The core of the site measures approximately 500 acres (2.0 km2), although archaeological investigations have shown that the total occupation area extended for more than three miles (5 km) along the river terrace. The monumental construction is a group of six concentric, crescent ridge earthworks, divided by five aisles radiating from the center at the river bank. The site also has several mounds both on the outside and inside of the ring earthworks. The name "Poverty Point" came from the plantation which once surrounded the site. The United States nominated Poverty Point for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List in January 2013.
The vast majority of artifacts uncovered at Poverty Point are small, baked shapes made of loess, which are usually balls, bicones or ropes, all of which have been described as “Poverty Point Objects” or PPOs. Archaeologists have long debated their uses. They have concluded the fired earth objects were used in cooking, a conclusion reached through experimental archaeology. When placed in earth ovens, the objects were shown to hold heat and aid in cooking food. Stone boiling was an alternate way of heating up food before pottery could withstand the heat. The soil of the lower Mississippian Valley located at Poverty Point does not contain proper pebbles so, the manufacture of artificial stones were necessary.
In recent years, the theory that these anomalous clay balls, fire-pits and other PPO’s were used for cooking has come under intense debate and more recent discoveries linking this site to the copper-producing region of the Great Lakes, has led some scholars to posit that what was really going on at Poverty Point was actually the refining of copper for trade goods, the theory being that raw copper was brought down from Michigan during the summer months and then refined for manufacture and trade during the winter in the warmer climate of Louisiana.
Although skeletal finds at the Poverty Point complex are rare, workmen in Winnsboro LA, engaged in a drainage project, found the remains “of a race of giants twelve feet in height.” The workers noted that “the skulls are in a perfect state of preservation and some of the jawbones are large enough to surround a baby’s body.” In a related find in Alabama, 400 skeletons were unearthed at Moundville, Alabama, by the Alabama Museum of Natural History, who estimated that some of the skeletons dated to 3,000 B.C., with the largest specimen measuring 7’6” tall.
Texas Giants on the Beach
In Texas, where everything is big, it would be to the state’s ever-lasting horror, if it turned out that their giansts were smaller than those of other giants who once ruled over the rest of America in ancient times. In 1931, The San Antonio Press announced that the a Federal WPA archaeological team digging in association with the University of Texas, discovered what at that time was called “the largest human skull found in the world in Victoria County Texas.” Dubbed the giant on the beach, photographs reveal that this skull was “twice the size of the skull of a normal man.” These finds were held at the University of Texas, where Dr. Hrdlickson of the Smithsonian examined them and related discoveries and in a joint press release it was said that “these finds in Texas are beginning to give weight to the theory that man lived in Texas 40,000 to 45,000 years ago.”
Giant Skull
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Other “Texas-size” finds in this part of the country are also impressive. These include the extensive examples of pottery and copper-work from the Caddo culture that covered Northern Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas and include engraved slates matching those found in Minnesota, as well as repousee copper pieces identical to those recently uncovered in Cahokia. In addition, in Oklahoma, the remains of a city of 100,000 people was discovered and destroyed and on a near-by hillside the remains of a massive forge complex was recently identified and is under current study. For those who say that there was no fresh water to supply this city, related mound builder sites have been discovered in association with the Comal County Springs in New Braunfels, which is one of the largest fresh-water aquifers in North America, supplying 212,000,000 gallons of fresh water every 24 hours. In addition to the fresh water, a cave system has also been identified in this same area of associated mound builder sites. Called the Bremher Cave complex, it stretches for a radius of ten miles and a test made of voice vibration found that voices could be heard for a distance of two and a half miles south of the point of origin. There have been no studies to date to determine whether this is a natural or man-made phenomona.
Cliff Dwellers and Disappearing Cities
In order to make sense of the extraordinary finds made in the Western Desert Regions of the United States, it is necessary to completely change your mental image of this area in terms of antiquity and geology. That this region of the country had high culture as early as 8,000 B.C. will be proven by the giant mummies wrapped in fine textiles and dated to that period and found in Spirit Cave in Nevada. But none of these finds will make any sense until you realize that prior to the gigantic Lassen volcanic explosion posited sometime around 5,000 B.C., the western region United States that included California, Nevada New Mexico and Arizona, was covered by a fresh water lake called Lake Lohanton, which was as large as the biggest of the Great Lakes and situated at a height of 5,000 feet. The Lene Lenapi Indians on the East Coast of America, report that they originally lived in the West until their world was destroyed by fire and they were forced to migrate to the other side of the Mississippi River in search of food and shelter.
Although the Cliff Dweller’s are generally thought of as a recent tribe, Smithsonian field reports from 1910 report signs of contruction dating back at least 5,000 years at some of the kivas that they explored. Hieroplyphs were discovered in 1926 at sites in New Mexico and Arizona and a corresponsent from the Smithsonian reports from a 1910 PUYE cliff dweller excavation that “It is estimated by the Smithsonian people that 10,000 lived on the face of this one cliff and that the population of the adjoining cliffs and on the mesas was fully 100,000 people.” In another report from 1910, M.J. Brown comments on “the great quantities of Portland cement that platered almost every one of the hundreds of rooms in the kiva.” Later on in the same report Brown quotes Hewitt of the Smithsonian expedition as saying, “The Pueblos have traditions, legends, or anything regarding these cliff people. There is too great a difference in the heads of the Cliff Dwellers skeletons and the present Indians to allow any connection or relationship between them.”
To give a further idea of just how distorted our view of the extent and size of the Cliff Dweller population, here is a report from the Oakland Tribune of 1926 about the discovery of a six-mile long straight city in Nevada. “The ruins run in a continuous line of six miles and are about a half mile wide. The outlines of the houses of stone and adobe are clearly seen.”
The Giants of Stonehenge Island
When looked at in its entirety, it seems fitting that our trip west across United States in search of the ancient giants who once ruled this land, should end at the Pacific Ocean with the biggest discoveries saved for last. The first major discovery involves what was called The Death Valley Temple of the Giants. This story from the 1947 edition of The Nevada News relates how Dr. F. Bruce Russell, following up on reports that the Smithsonian had hidden evidence of giants found Death Valley, eventually uncovered a complex of 32 caves in an 180 square mile radius around the California/Nevada border. Inside he reported finding the skeletons of 8-9 foot giants dressed in animal skins that had been tailored into jackets and pants that resembled “prehistoric Zoot-suits.” Inside the complex of caves, Russell reported finding hieroglyphs, extensive weapons, religious artifacts and cooking utensils and at the end of a hall leading from the main temple he said there was a room filled with the well-preserved remains of dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, imperial elephants and other extinct beasts paired off in niches as if on display.”
In 1911, it was reported that William Altmann, assistant curator of the Golden Gate Memorial Museum, found skeletons, pottery and artifacts in Port Costa, including the skeleton of a giant more than seven feet tall. Later the same year, Altmann reported finding more giants on an island in the Santa Barbara Channel, including one skeleton that measured in at 7’4” tall. In 1934, The Bakersfield Californian reported that The Smithsonian, under the direction of Dr. W.T. Strong and W.M. Walker, removed 564 skeletons and 4,000 artifacts from a series of mound sites site near Taft, California. According to the article The Smithsonian commissioned Pavey L. Stanly of Bakersfield to make a topographical site of the finds, which was to be filed with the collection at The Smithsonian. In 1930, hundreds more skeletons were unearthed near the beach in Carpinteria.
Catalina Giants
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But the most amazing discoveries in California were eventually found on Catalina Island. In the 1920’s, the island of Catalina was owned by the Wrigley Chewing gum family, who hired Prof. Ralph Glidden to conduct a series of digs on the island under the direction of the Catalina Museum. What they found made headlines around the world, only to be written out of the history books less than 10 years later. In short, Glidden and his team exhumed the remains of 3,781 skeletons of a race of blond-haired giants. The tallest was believed to be a king who measured 9’2” tall and the average height of the skeletons was reported to be around 7 feet. In addition, the team found the remains of a megalithic “Stonehenge-era” temple. Later radio-carbon dating revealed that some of the skeletons unearthed were 7,000 years old. For over 50 years the proofs pertaining to these discoveries were vigorously denied by the University of California and The Smithsonian, but in 2011 it was finally admitted that the evidence for these finds had been locked away from the public in the restricted-access evidence rooms of the Smithsonian, along with detailed field reports and hundreds of photos.
Artists rendition of Cahokia Mounds in 1150 A.D., courtesy
Cahokia Mounds Museum Society and Art Grossman.
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