Your Daily Giant 3/7/2013
Today's headline from the Rochester Journal October 5th, 1936 announces, "Smithsonian Gets Huge Indian Skull". This is one of many giant finds that occurred in the Aleutian Islands. The Aleutian Islands are a chain of 14 large volcanic islands and 55 smaller ones, forming part of the Aleutian Arc in the Northern Pacific Ocean, occupying an area of 6,821 sq mi and extending about 1,200 mi westward from the Alaska Peninsula toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. First director of Anthropology of the Smithsonian, Alex Hrdlicka unearthed the giant skull. I just recently got a paper route and opened my lemonade stand. I am hoping I can raise enough money to get a subscription to Smithsonian Magazine and get the cable package that includes the Smithsonian Channel. I want to hear all about these giant skeletal remains that they are continually reported to take possession of. It will be so interesting if I can make it down to Washington D. C. I can only imagine the great displays they have with all the evidence they have confiscated.
Alex Hrdlicka shaped Anthropological theory in this country for decades and vigorously enforced and defended his theories with draconian zeal. Hrdlicka is the one who proclaimed that "Giants are no more" and chose to ignore a mountain of evidence including the giant accounts in the Smithsonian's own Ethnology reports. Let's look at one of the enlightening and inspiring quotes Mr. Hrdlicka had, printed in the Science News letter v13 #353 1928 pg.21. “the greatest danger before the American people today is the blending of the Negro tenth of the population into the superior blood of the white race."
Hrdlicka was also appointed to the "Committee on the Negro" along with Earnest Hooton and fellow Eugenist Charles Davenport. In 1927 their committee endorsed a comparison of African babies with young apes, in 1937 Hrdlicka also published findings in his American Journal of Physical Anthropology to “prove that the negro race is phylogenetically a closer approach to primitive man than the white race."
So this is the man that basically determined the course of Anthropological theory for several decades. Once these grooves are laid down then they are worn deep when funding, bias and academic arrogance flow through the channels. Then we end up where we are today, with utterly entrenched theories built on inaccurate evidence because much had been concealed. A field riddled with anomalies for the obvious reasons but very few there to question the dogma. These ideas are never put in a proper context because academia has no tolerance for the study of anomalies. All those that study anything outside the accepted doctrine are vigorously attacked, like the scientists who eventually broke rank to debunk the Clovis theory. Let me finish with a quote from Ross Hamilton's brilliant book "A Tradition of Giants", who discusses Hrdlicka.
"It is hardly beyond the scope of an overly ambitious man and a cooperative (perhaps intimidated) staff to have cleaned house of a surplus of challenging artifacts in view of the political problems attending such evidence. Like the ecclesiastical editorship of the Constantine era, when a group of elite researchers believe themselves to be a sort of priestcraft charged with preserving the truth, much that would question their wisdom is inexplicably unobtainable. We do not know what treasures have laid in the private vaults of the Vatican, and a similar inscrutability is inherent with the Smithsonian. An institution selecting its executive staff by private appointment, we are left to assume the anthropology division of the National Museum is one of the last ―good old boys clubs still influencing the national psyche in a questionable sense. We wonder why there is no one there to engage a whistle-blowing operation."
Today's headline from the Rochester Journal October 5th, 1936 announces, "Smithsonian Gets Huge Indian Skull". This is one of many giant finds that occurred in the Aleutian Islands. The Aleutian Islands are a chain of 14 large volcanic islands and 55 smaller ones, forming part of the Aleutian Arc in the Northern Pacific Ocean, occupying an area of 6,821 sq mi and extending about 1,200 mi westward from the Alaska Peninsula toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. First director of Anthropology of the Smithsonian, Alex Hrdlicka unearthed the giant skull. I just recently got a paper route and opened my lemonade stand. I am hoping I can raise enough money to get a subscription to Smithsonian Magazine and get the cable package that includes the Smithsonian Channel. I want to hear all about these giant skeletal remains that they are continually reported to take possession of. It will be so interesting if I can make it down to Washington D. C. I can only imagine the great displays they have with all the evidence they have confiscated.
Alex Hrdlicka shaped Anthropological theory in this country for decades and vigorously enforced and defended his theories with draconian zeal. Hrdlicka is the one who proclaimed that "Giants are no more" and chose to ignore a mountain of evidence including the giant accounts in the Smithsonian's own Ethnology reports. Let's look at one of the enlightening and inspiring quotes Mr. Hrdlicka had, printed in the Science News letter v13 #353 1928 pg.21. “the greatest danger before the American people today is the blending of the Negro tenth of the population into the superior blood of the white race."
Hrdlicka was also appointed to the "Committee on the Negro" along with Earnest Hooton and fellow Eugenist Charles Davenport. In 1927 their committee endorsed a comparison of African babies with young apes, in 1937 Hrdlicka also published findings in his American Journal of Physical Anthropology to “prove that the negro race is phylogenetically a closer approach to primitive man than the white race."
So this is the man that basically determined the course of Anthropological theory for several decades. Once these grooves are laid down then they are worn deep when funding, bias and academic arrogance flow through the channels. Then we end up where we are today, with utterly entrenched theories built on inaccurate evidence because much had been concealed. A field riddled with anomalies for the obvious reasons but very few there to question the dogma. These ideas are never put in a proper context because academia has no tolerance for the study of anomalies. All those that study anything outside the accepted doctrine are vigorously attacked, like the scientists who eventually broke rank to debunk the Clovis theory. Let me finish with a quote from Ross Hamilton's brilliant book "A Tradition of Giants", who discusses Hrdlicka.
"It is hardly beyond the scope of an overly ambitious man and a cooperative (perhaps intimidated) staff to have cleaned house of a surplus of challenging artifacts in view of the political problems attending such evidence. Like the ecclesiastical editorship of the Constantine era, when a group of elite researchers believe themselves to be a sort of priestcraft charged with preserving the truth, much that would question their wisdom is inexplicably unobtainable. We do not know what treasures have laid in the private vaults of the Vatican, and a similar inscrutability is inherent with the Smithsonian. An institution selecting its executive staff by private appointment, we are left to assume the anthropology division of the National Museum is one of the last ―good old boys clubs still influencing the national psyche in a questionable sense. We wonder why there is no one there to engage a whistle-blowing operation."
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