Early American Indians

[Digit]

Reminds me of the Mekon. Before your time I'm afraid Marduk.

[Cognito]

I'm cranky cos I didn't get my allowance this week Dad

Marduk, we have been over this countless times ... you're not getting an allowance until you take my stepdaughter and her toddler off my hands. And that means a one-way ticket to London, not round trip!

[Charlie Hatchett]

BTW, Gary, Cog is our resident "sick bastard".

Mmmmaaaahhhh!! You know I love you Cog!!

Marduk, we have been over this countless times ... you're not getting an allowance until you take my stepdaughter and her toddler off my hands. And that means a one-way ticket to London, not round trip!

See, told you Gary.

[marduk]

Reminds me of the Mekon. Before your time I'm afraid Marduk.

I am aware of his work
the eagle comic over time merged with 2000ad comic
which I expect is actually a little after your time
he did eventually retire and thesedays lives a reclusive existence at a retirement home in grimsby along with Dick Barton and TinTin

[Digit]

[Gary Svindal]

Beagle said: “The double row of teeth you mention seems like quite an aberation. I've never heard of it in an adult, but it's probably happened. I have seen an occassional child with it but that was because the "baby teeth" had not yet fallen out, scaring the hell out of parents.

You have some interesting links there. I have seen many stories like this but no good follow-up investigations.”

My first thoughts also were that this is surely an aberration of dentition, but the number of reports suggests more of a racial characteristic. Damned odd race indeed, but as you state no good follow-up investigation has been made re the mound skeletons - except for Deborah A. Bolnick’s haplogroup study in 2005 mentioned by Marduk, and his mtdna breakdown may closely relate to actual Indian legends of the people of the Northeast.

According to Indian Legend there were two different races of strange humans that pre-existed their culture. One was the Archaic people who had slender bodies with long narrow heads. The other group was the Adena people who had a massive bone structure with a short head. The Archaics were living in the Ohio River Valley prior to the Adenas. In what is assumed to be around 1000 BC, the Adenas moved into the area , coming up from the South, to claim dominion over the land. After a great war, the Archaics were destroyed by this more advanced and powerful race. From the Adenas the art of mound building was established.

David Cusic, a Tuscorora by birth, wrote in 1825 that among the legends of the ancient people there was a powerful tribe called Ronnongwetowanca. They were giants, and had a "considerable habitation." He states that when the Great Spirit made the people, some of them became giants. They made themselves feared by attacking when most unexpected. After having endured the outrages of these giants for a great long time, the people banded together to destroy them. With a final force of about 800 warriors, they successfully annihilated the abhorrent Ronnongwetowanca. There were no giants anywhere after this, it was said. This was supposed to have happened around 2,500 winters before Columbus arrived in America, i.e. circa 1,000 B.C.-the time that the Adena seem to have arrived in the Ohio Valley.

Interesting site: North American Giants
Crank up the audio before clicking.

The mounds are attributed to the Adena Culture, and the giant skeletons were found at the bottom of the mounds, with more recent burials of average sized people buried in the upper levels. Apparently the Fort Hill Culture and the Hopewell Culture also used the mounds for burials.

Charlie: Yes, precisely what I’m talking about. I didn’t know about this site. Rather a non-pc content, but then I’m a non-pc kind of person. He could be Caucasian, but give him a Mohawk haircut and he could also be an Indian. It seems totally unacceptable that science cannot perform a bone analysis.

T. Apoleon Cheney notes (in Illustrations of the Ancient Monuments of Western New York) that a twelve-foot high elliptical mound above Cattaraugus County’s Conewango Valley held eight big skeletons. Most crumbled, but a thigh bone was found to be 28” long. Exquisite stone points, enamelwork, and jewelry (like that of Mexico or Peru) were also unearthed in the area. The mound looked like those of the Old World.

Cheney also mentions a skeleton seven-foot-five (with an unusually thick skull) from a Chautauqua County site near Cassadaga Creek. Inside a very old mound near Cassadaga Lake were some large skeletons that were examined by medical gentlemen.” One measured nearly nine feet. (In 1938 Charles Hunnington of Randolph was so inspired by Doc Cheney’s finds that he made two giant “wooden Indian” statues, probably still at the museum in Little Valley.)

The History of Cattaraugus County notes the town of Carrollton’s “Fort Limestone,” whose rough figure-eight enclosed five acres. In 1851 the removal of a stump turned up a mass of human bones. Some were enormous. Franklinville’s Marvin Older virtually gamboled about the site with them: a skull fit over his size seven-and-a-half head; a rib curved all the way around him, a shinbone went from his ankle to above his knee, and a jaw - with bodacious molars - went over his own. Its first owner had probably stood eight feet tall.

Turner’s History of the Holland Purchase reports an ancient three-acre earth fort in Orleans county (about one and a half miles west of Shelby Center) that covered seven-and eight-foot skeletons. Their skulls were well developed in front, broad between the ears, and flattened on top. Also, Turner notes that, upon digging a cellar on his town of Aurora farm, Charles P. Pierson found a giant of his own.

In 1925, several amateurs digging in an Indian mound at Walkerton, Indiana, uncovered the skeletons of eight very ancient humans measuring in height from eight to almost nine feet. All eight giants had been buried in “substantial copper armor.” North American Giants

Interesting site on the jc virus: JC Virus

[clubs_stink]

My theory of when the first people came to North America is that they were always here. No land bridge (although more people might have come that way, and by sailing) But my idea is that billions (I have no idea of geological time) of years ago much of the land on earth fit together like it seems it would (albeit bits and pieces missing) by merely looking at the globe. When the cataclysmic events happened that separated them and continued to move as time went by...there were already people on them. That's all. I know, I know..that makes us much older than science has proven, but it's the only logical explanation. We don't know everything.

The idea that something was out there to find, was out there, all kinds of legends sparked the imaginatios of ancient mariners...looking for??? If I was a regular guy living in a village doing villager things, or perhaps an educated person of some means, I don't think I'd be suddenly inspired to hop into a boat and go off into the wild blue, unless I had some idea that there was something there to find. Besides, way back when St. Brenden et al did their thing, they believed the earth was flat..didn't they? So, what were they doing in boats heading off into the wild blue when they knew the earth was flat?

I think legends so old passed in the oral tradition..told and retold...who knows? I sure don't but it's the imagination and possibility thinking that has created every single cool invention we've ever had! All you have to do is compare fiction books written way back when...with the technological realities of today. It is said that what a man can concieve of, he can do...so, maybe I'm not so crazy...and neither were the ancient mariners.

[marduk]

the problem with a lot of these early reports is that they are unsubstantiated
they were also written at a time when everyone was out trying to prove the biblical adage that there were giants in the earth in those days
show me one giant skeleton from these digs and I'll believe it
til then.............

St. Brenden et al did their thing, they believed the earth was flat..didn't they?

nobody ever believed that
its a modern invention designed to make us think our ancestors were idiots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
Eratosthenes was out measuring the circumference of the earth before 200bce and getting it right
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes
funnily enough the only people who believe it for real are all contemporary
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublons ... ociety.htm
takes all sorts

[Forum Monk]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5940239162

I didn't believe it either Marduk...then someone showed me this.
Pictures don't lie, do they?

[marduk]

I'd be extremely dubious of anything that mixes real footage with well known fakes if i were you

[Gary Svindal]

Dick Barton is a real character? I rather thought him a made-up chap.

Interesting flick Monk. I’ve seen those pics before, but I believe the Bramins declared them fakes?

the problem with a lot of these early reports is that they are unsubstantiated
they were also written at a time when everyone was out trying to prove the biblical adage that there were giants in the earth in those days
show me one giant skeleton from these digs and I'll believe it
til then.............

What I found striking is the sheer number of these reports during the pre-archeological era. My hope for this thread was to have some genius pop up and announce the whole issue had been fully investigated by modern science, but it does seem that those dusty archives, written by unqualified gentlemen of letters, have been simply dismissed, with no follow-up investigation having ever been made.

Frankly, the existing evidence indicates that an extremely large race of people lived here in the America Northeast at least as early as 1000bc, and that the race was exterminated by the arrival of a competing race of people called the Adena. The Adena people were not giants, as they were described as short and thick, rarely over five feet high, and few indeed were six feet. It would surely be interesting to have some DNA analysis completed on those very large bones “reportedly” found at the bottom layer of some mounds, but the native American watchdog groups would never permit this action without a long court fight.

It may all be just a bunch of bs, but does make for some interesting speculations.

[marduk]

Frankly, the existing evidence indicates that an extremely large race of people lived here in the America Northeast at least as early as 1000bc

this is the problem
there are not a sheer number of these reports
for a supposed race of people there are very few
and thats all it is
claims made a long time ago and no evidence to back them up
show me a giant skeleton
can you do that ?

[clubs_stink]

Here's the thing (that's my favorite line from MONK).

Those who take the Bible as a literal religious doctrine DID try to prop it up by making "archeological discovers" that seemed to make the Bible seem more true. HOWEVER if we approach the Bible from a non religious point of view and accept the Pentacuch and Septuagint as the written oral history of ONE particual group of people (who were sharing the earth with MANY other groups of people who also have their own written oral traditions, ) then we can approach it with those other traditions in mind.

We all know that MANY cultures have a flood myth. In each culture they have a central figure who managed to survive the flood and repopulate the earth. For simplicity's sake we will stick with the bettter known Bible account....long story short, there was a big flood, a lot of people died, some didn't.

We know from the geological record that there is a period now called the deluvial period..and that there is in fact a geological record of high waters. The geological record does not tell how how many if any people died. (I am real foggy on my geological time line, so please forgive me if I'm not on it). Pretend for a minute (and this might well be the CW) that science states that during the deluvial period there were no humans alive on earth. Given all the folklore surrounding a flood myth in many cultures around the world, I'd have to say...hey, let's rethink the whole idea that there were no people around for this...the record came from somewhere, and to be honest, I'd really like to NOT think that those folks found out about it from aliens who came to earth and told them about it.

If we look at the collective myths then we must accept that there is SOMETHING behind it.

I take this same approach to the "giant myth". The bible speaks of a race of giants...how prevelant is this myth in the lore of other cultures?

IF other cultures have the same or very similar myths, then I'd have to say...where there's smoke there's fire.

Just because we don't understand something or cannot drop it into a nice tidy timeline, does not mean that it is insignificant, IE, recall the Chinese and their bids to keep quite the red haired plaid clad caucasians found buried in an area of China that was not PC...the Chinese don't want to admit that OTHERS might have been in their "space". The same goes for the AIs...that's why they fought Kenniwick man who is so clearly NOT the same "race"..and honestly that recreated skull posted a few pages back looks oddly like Kenniwick man. (Who I happen to feel is a dead ringer for actor Patrick Stewart.)

We tend to grossly overlook the oral traditions (written or not...and by that I mean oral for centuries then finding themselves written). I realize that oral traditions can grow over time. Clearly that is what happened with the Noah story. Our hero was a good Jew who essentially single handly saved the animals of the earth with his "foresight' however that is quite common that the person commiting the oral to the written page would do such a thing..embelish...for the point, creating a hero of his or her own culture to save the day.

I propose that the essential bits of the story survived intact...there was a flood, a lot of people died, some survived. Thus, I hold the same concept for some of the other shared myths..that there is a fundamental truth, embelished over the years.

The word giant brings to mind Jack in the Beanstalk to us modern humans, however giant to the ancient might have meant 6'3 for all we know. Possibility thinking unlocks more secrets than concrete thinking. Simple correlation: Writer=possibility thinker, Accountant=concrete thinker. Example: an accountant did not conceive of nor write a book about a trip to the moon, nor a screenplay about space travel and adventure [Star Trek]. His or her thoughts are more orriented towards the reality of what is before him, insteand of what COULD be before him. That works well in accounting, but bodes poorly for invention. (Unless of course it is "creative accounting."

I hope my correlation is understandable, I am not intending to insult accountants. (April 15 is coming we NEED them.)

[Minimalist]

I take this same approach to the "giant myth". The bible speaks of a race of giants...how prevelant is this myth in the lore of other cultures?

What is a 'giant?' I submit that it is someone bigger than you. Were you suddenly to find yourself on the floor of Madison Square Garden during a basketball game you may well feel that you are surrounded by giants.

From there it is a simple step to letting human imagination continue to make them bigger and bigger....the old "fish story" comes to mind.

[Digit]

All good solid stuff Marduk. Do you know Dunstable, in Bedfordshire, at all?
Before WW2 the A5 road passed over a chalk outcrop, but a part of getting the unemployed working was road improvements and the chalk was cut through, by pick an shovel, I might add, to level the road.
Apparently during the work they uncovered a 'Saxon' skeleton that was supposed to be in excess of 8ft tall.
Haven't a clue if there is any truth in it at all but if there is there should be some records as cameras etc were freely available. I'll see what I can find out.