Your Daily Giant 4/9/2013

 

Today's Daily Giant is a continuation of yesterday's about Captain John Smith and the Susquehanocks. We get some help from Deb Twigg at Spanishhill.com, who has a great site filled with archaeology, history and giant skeleton information in the region. The following is an abstract from Dr. Marshall Becker's paper, Becker is a senior fellow of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. "The Stature of A Susquehannock Population of the Mid-16th Century Based on Skeletal Remains from 46HM73" Pennsylvania Archeologist, Volume 61, No. 2 September 1991. ABSTRACT: When John Smith first contacted a group of Susquehannock in 1608, he described these people as "gyant-like." Direct confirmation of this observation can now be provided through studies of the long bones of a population which was part of the Susquehannock "confederacy." Recent excavations at a Susquehannock site on the South Branch of the Potomac River in Hampshire County, West Virginia, revealed portions of a palisaded village and associated features dating from the middle of the 16th century. This remnant of a flood-destroyed site yielded 13 relatively intact burials. Surface collection of skeletal material immediately downstream of the site after the flood, provided long bones from at least 18 other adults. Calculation of the stature of the individuals represented in this sample and comparisons with the other Native American populations of this period confirm John Smith's observations." There is no shortage of sources confirming Smith's claims such as the work of noted Archaeologist Donald A. Cadzow. Cadzow's involvement in 1932 at the Washington County, Pennsylvania find included 48 giant skeletons, one seven foot five inches, as I previously reported. The attached article from the Greensburg Daily Tribune, April 23, 1932 pg. 5, announces the intention to find a fort of the "giant" Susquehannocks. That prediction would be borne out in September of that year, with the unearthing of the above forementioned giant skeletons. In the Baltimore Sun, July 13th 1930, is found an article describing Cadzow's work at Safe Harbor, Penn. titled, "Science Uncovers Evidence To Support Captain John Smith's Yarns." Lastly, I have attached an article from the Syracuse-Herald Journal, July 6, 1954 which states the following describing Native Americans of the past in the Spanish Hill area, "Historians describe them as giants and this has been borne out by the fact that skeletons seven and eight feet tall have been exhumed."