Your Daily Giant 6/2/2013

 

Today's Daily Giant comes from the Telegraph Herald, January 3, 1998 pg 2. A discussion of burial mounds and the unearthing of a giant skeleton is discussed. "Archaeologists have documented 26 mounds at Gramercy Park dating from about 200 to 300 A.D. They spread over a 7-to 10-acre area. There are also Hopewell mounds on the north side of Dubuque and outside of Marquette, Iowa. About 10,000 have been found continent wide, Berryman said. (Actually over 100,000 burial mounds existed in Ancient America when the colonists arrived)...One according to documents contained the skeleton of an unusually tall person. Likely a male, the individual was 7 to 8 feet tall...Little remains of the Hopewell of Gramercy. Col. P.W. Norris conducted investigations in 1857 and 1882. He sent the artifacts to what is now the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D. C. All that remains of the artifacts are a few stones and bone fragments, Berryman said." The document the article refers to is the Smithsonian Ethnology report of 1883 that records the excavation of Smithsonian employee Col. P.W. Norris and the unearthing of a skeleton measured at seven foot six inches. This is one of multiple accounts in the Smithsonian's records that indicate their own scientists unearthed over seven foot skeletons. I have also attached an account from the West Virginia Historical Magazine Quarterly, Volume 2, 1902, pg 86. It is a correspondence between two prominent citizens of Charleston, W. Va., Robert Douglas Roller and W. S. Laidley. The letter states, "Some years ago when the Colonel Ben Smith mound was opened by Professor Norris, of the Smithsonian, he found the skeleton of a giant which measured seven feet eight inches in length.(Actually seven six) This occurred about fifteen years ago. Now comes a sequel. A few days ago Joe Foster was ploughing near the mound and unearthed a stone axe. The axe is of granite, beautifully made and well preserved. It weighs seven pounds eight ounces. The largest ever found here. Dr. J. N. Mahan bought the axe and has it in his possession. Could this have been the giant's axe?" I have also attached a New York Times article from November 20, 1883 with the headline "A Giant's Remains in a Mound" which describes the excavation that Robert Douglass Roller spoke of 19 years later. Hoaxes, Mastodon bones, disarticulation, sensationalistic selling of newspapers? Really? Skeptics will have an uphill battle the more the public gets their hands on this suppressed information and I plan to keep bringing the heat.