Ancient giant humans

[Serpentine]

When you randomly dig up a massive bone out of the earth and have no idea about things like the Dinosaurs you're left with Dragons and Giants.

To back that up, there is an idea that -

You can arrange a mammoth skeleton to resemble a giant hominid. There's also the very interesting shape of elephant skulls. And there's a place in Greece that was known as an ancient battlefield littered with the corpses of cyclopses.
The Greeks were actually quite active in proto-paleontology and had museums for ancient monster bones attached to various temples.

Dammit, you beat me to it.
Well, I'mma back it up with a photo, anyway:

[Kato]

Nothing new to add but just to reiterate what I think is most likely / convincing :
The idea of giants is one of the simplest of mythical creatures. It's humans, just bigger. In the same way many cultures have ideas about small people. So it's just unlikely people wouldn't come up with the idea and tell stories about it.
Add to that a few strange, large bones and maybe people from far away who are quite tall and you have lots of material for stories about giants.. (rarely in playgrounds)

[Telonius]

When you're a kid, adults are regularly twice your size or more. They're often scary, especially when they're mad. Every kid knows that adults aren't very bright, either. So you've got the classic characteristics of a giant, all in an experience that practically every human being has shared.

[obryn]

1) Am I missing or overlooking evidence? So far as I can tell it appears that giant hominids are fictional, without basis in fact, but I thought I'd double check just in case I missed something.

2) Given that this is myth -- then why do people around the world feel the need to tell stories like this? About there once upon a time being a race of competing intelligent creatures who are literally larger than life? Myth is usually not literally true, but it often points to another kind of truth. Sort of the way the Trojan War probably did not involve a thousand ships, but there really was a city on that site and it really had been destroyed -- not once, but repeatedly, IIRC.

Why did our ancestors tell these stories about giants? Or about dragons, for that matter? Again, it's a thing that never existed in our world -- not winged, fire-breathing lizards, at any rate -- but the stories keep cropping up around the world in different cultures. Why?

As Razade said, quite concisely:

When you randomly dig up a massive bone out of the earth and have no idea about things like the Dinosaurs you're left with Dragons and Giants.

There is zero archaeological evidence for the historical existence of giants.

This is a hot topic, though. Some modern young-earth creationists are very gung-ho about giants, because evidence of giants can be rolled into evidence for young-earth creationism and biblical literalism. That's why you see recent shows about giants on the History Channel (or, as it should now be called, the "History" channel, complete with finger-quotes).*

If you're interested in hearing more about the origins and pervasiveness of giant myths, the ArchyFantasies podcast has gone quite in-depth into this whole "giant" phenomenon. (The podcast has a number of archaeologists who discuss pseudo-archaeological topics like this; they cover Giants a lot, but here's two.)

https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwor...chyfantasies/3

https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwor...chyfantasies/6

[Bohandas]

Wait. The tinfoil hat stuff is no longer confined to H2? It's on regular Hiatory Channel too now?

[obryn]

Wait. The tinfoil hat stuff is no longer confined to H2? It's on regular Hiatory Channel too now?

All of formerly-educational television is full of woo these days. They are cheap to make, and people inexplicably watch them.

[Bohandas]

All of formerly-educational television is full of woo these days. They are cheap to make, and people inexplicably watch them.

Not true. I'm pretty sure the Discovery Channel is mostly fishing shows and exploitative reality TV (or it was as of when I stopped eatching it)

[The Eye]

So I was reading some old mythology, and I noticed a common theme in many of the old legends is of the struggle against the Giants. There's the Nephilem in Hebrew stories, but there's also the war against the Titans in Greek mythology, and the war against the Vanir in Norse mythology. Heck, even Celtic mythology has the war with Balor .

Or, as the image has it:

That's funny because he actually had two Ravens who stood at his right and left shoulders.

Greek mythology has the actual giants (gigantes). There are various story of fights against them. One is Hercules vs Anteus. Another one is Olympians vs the Aloades, who put Ares in a vase and put one mountain over the other to reach Mt Olympus. The most important one is the Gygantomachy, which was an actual battle of all of the gods, each helped by a human, against the giants. The giants could only be killed by being struck by a mortal and a god at the same time.

Another giant is Geryon.

I think that one reason for this is that we all have to handle people who are bigger than us, and we are small we are warned about bad men. Which, to us, are (evil) giants mommy and daddy will strike down with lightining if they try something.

There is a theory that elephant skulls were the basis for cyclopes. Maybe some decided that big people with two eyes also could have had an elephant skull.

But the Giants giants were not huge nor the Titans they had normal stature.

[obryn]

Not true. I'm pretty sure the Discovery Channel is mostly fishing shows and exploitative reality TV (or it was as of when I stopped eatching it)

Hah! Good point. Also History has some American Pickers and the like.

But still the amount of pseudoscience bull on that whole set of channels is staggering. Ancient aliens is in - what, season 10 by now?

[Bohandas]

And don't forget all the carnival freaks on The Learning Channel. Not sure if that counts as woo or not. It's mostly sit and gawk but no good sideshow would be complete without some dubious information about the attractions and TLC is no exception.

[pendell]

Hah! Good point. Also History has some American Pickers and the like.

But still the amount of pseudoscience bull on that whole set of channels is staggering. Ancient aliens is in - what, season 10 by now?

The amount of nonsense everywhere is staggering.

Thanks for the links!

https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwor...chyfantasies/3

https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwor...chyfantasies/6

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[obryn]

The amount of nonsense everywhere is staggering.

Thanks for the links!

https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwor...chyfantasies/3

https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwor...chyfantasies/6

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Glad to help! It's one of my favorite podcasts, hands down. If you're looking for other highlights and more stuff to listen to, check out the ones with Jason Colavito and/or with Jeb Card as a guest. (Jeb became a co-host later on.) The Cthulhu Mythos and Theosophy connections to pseudoarcheology are unexpected and fascinating.

https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwor...hyfantasies/10
https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwor...hyfantasies/56

[Finback]

There's a hypothesis that the Japanese legends regarding oni started from shipwrecked Russian sailors, who to the smaller Japanese, would have appeared to be giants in comparison.

One of the main problems with things like cryptozoology (and the above) is that there's this notion that there has to be some sort of real world explanation to explain myths and legends - is it not simply possible that the Japanese just had really good imaginations? Likewise the Jersey Devil - lots of conjecture about sandhill cranes, etc. until it was discovered that it was simply a piece of political propaganda to slur a particular family's name - there was never any sort of creature to be misidentified. The Great Flood is similar, because so many cultures have flood myths - it's claimed it must be true. *Or* people tend to live near waterways, and floods happen commonly enough to enter oral traditions.

Similarly, tales of giants - the notion that there must be some sort of underlying real world large humanoids to explain mythology the world over precludes the simple premise that people have good imaginations.

[Finback]

If you're interested in hearing more about the origins and pervasiveness of giant myths, the ArchyFantasies podcast has gone quite in-depth into this whole "giant" phenomenon. (The podcast has a number of archaeologists who discuss pseudo-archaeological topics like this; they cover Giants a lot, but here's two.)

https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwor...chyfantasies/3

https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwor...chyfantasies/6

^^^^^^ THIS

The podcast is wonderful, and I would like to second this endorsement wholeheartedly.

[dps]

There is zero archaeological evidence for the historical existence of giants.

Define "giant", though. That certain individual humans have had unusually large stature is pretty obvious.

As someone said, depending of what a "cubit" actually was, the biblical Goliath might have been as short as 6'9". That's certainly not unreasonable. But what was the average height of an adult male at the time? Maybe 5' or so? Yeah, if the typical person is 5', you'd consider someone 6'9" to be a giant.

[Liquor Box]

Define "giant", though. That certain individual humans have had unusually large stature is pretty obvious.

As someone said, depending of what a "cubit" actually was, the biblical Goliath might have been as short as 6'9". That's certainly not unreasonable. But what was the average height of an adult male at the time? Maybe 5' or so? Yeah, if the typical person is 5', you'd consider someone 6'9" to be a giant.

I think, in context, "giant" is being used to refer to a human like animal that is too large to be a human, rather than a human who is unusually large. If so, I think it is right to say there is no evidence of them.

Of course, abnormally large humans might be the reason for the concept of giants.

[obryn]

^^^^^^ THIS

The podcast is wonderful, and I would like to second this endorsement wholeheartedly.

Thanks! Yeah, it's fantastic and always goes to the top of my playlist when a new one comes out.

Define "giant", though. That certain individual humans have had unusually large stature is pretty obvious.

As someone said, depending of what a "cubit" actually was, the biblical Goliath might have been as short as 6'9". That's certainly not unreasonable. But what was the average height of an adult male at the time? Maybe 5' or so? Yeah, if the typical person is 5', you'd consider someone 6'9" to be a giant.

Counterpoint: There is not sufficient evidence that "Goliath" ever existed that we need to come up with potential explanations for him or determinations about what his stature might have been. As Finback said a few posts back, we don't need to mess around with naturalistic explanations for mythological creatures or events.

Anyway, I was talking about stories of entire populations of giants - not the existence of individual tall people in history.

[pendell]

Anyway, I was talking about stories of entire populations of giants - not the existence of individual tall people in history.

True. There will always be one-off mutations. What I was thinking of was more of the mythological stories of entire races of giants who challenged humanity as apex predators, not individual champions.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Wardog]

I'm convinced a lot of myths and legends and folktales were the ancient equivilent of Chuck Norris Facts.

You can very easily get giants of whatever size you like (from abnormally large human to taller than a hill) just by
a) inventing ever more ridiculous feats that a hero performed, or
b) inventing ever bigger enemies that they defeated.

[Mastikator]

It could just be someone who suffered from gigantism, became famous, became a legend, the legend became mythology. When you play a game of telephone history can get very distorted. A single individual can turn into a group can turn into a people. A 2.2m tall guy can turn into a 3m can turn into a 4m guy.

Dragons exist in most cultures too, doesn't mean that dragons are real.

[pendell]

Having listened to the podcasts mentioned above, I find them astoundingly good. Wanted to make that comment.



Respectfully,

Brian P.

[obryn]

Having listened to the podcasts mentioned above, I find them astoundingly good. Wanted to make that comment.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I'm glad you enjoyed them. Thanks!

[Carlobrand]

There is no archaeological evidence for giants. There is however an abundance of manufactured fakery, so be careful about what you find out there in Internetland. One of the more famous hoaxes is the Cardiff Giant, a statue carved out of gypsum and then buried so it could be "discovered" by workmen hired to dig a well. It was then presented to the public as the discovery of a petrified giant. The science people could tell it was a fake, but the public ate it up.

Then of course there are all manner of photographic fakes, some dating back to the early days of photography. A remarkable lot of those known fakes make it into books sold to the public claiming that giants really exist. A lot of those include wild conspiracy tales about how someone somewhere is hiding the evidence from you - because otherwise they can't explain why there isn't any real evidence to look at.

The reality is the maximum safe height for humans is something around 8 to 9 feet or so, and you start having serious bone, joint and cardiac problems in that range. We run afoul of the square-cube law: make something twice as big in all dimensions, surface area increases by the square but mass increases by the cube. That creates problems for bones trying to support a large mass - the spine and legs need to be much wider to handle the extra load. The circulatory system also struggles - twice the height gives 8 times the mass to support, and it's a devil of a time getting the blood back up out of the legs. You'd have to fundamentally alter the design of the human body, either find a way to make it go up without as big an increase in mass (which ends up making something very willowy and alien-looking) or increase the width of bones to bear the increased mass (which makes people that look a lot like bipedal elephants). You'd have to give it new traits that would allow blood to be circulated back up from the legs more efficiently - perhaps valves within the veins to prevent backflow, perhaps a second heart at about the level of the hips.

In a nutshell, if there ever were bipeds of such height, they wouldn't have looked much like us.

[Bohandas]

Veins already have anti-backflow valves IIRC

[Strigon]

Which would suggest a mutation again. Not common but there are some odd ones floating about. And it's been quite awhile but I don't Recall Goliath having been listed to be particularly old, or even particularly far into what we'd consider middle age if he was even that far along.

Nor, I believe, was it even said he was a great fighter. Though I could be wrong.
They rolled him out across the river and asked if anyone would challenge him in single combat. Nobody wanted to, which could very well be what they were banking on. Then, when somebody did, he was killed by a single stone - could've very well been a fragile person that looked impressive from a distance.

[Aeson]

Nor, I believe, was it even said he was a great fighter. Though I could be wrong.
They rolled him out across the river and asked if anyone would challenge him in single combat. Nobody wanted to, which could very well be what they were banking on. Then, when somebody did, he was killed by a single stone - could've very well been a fragile person that looked impressive from a distance.

Despite their depiction as low-end weapons in video games, historical slings were very dangerous weapons, especially in the hands of a skilled slinger. You don't need to be particularly frail to be killed when a stone thrown by a sling hits you in the head.

[obryn]

Nor, I believe, was it even said he was a great fighter. Though I could be wrong.
They rolled him out across the river and asked if anyone would challenge him in single combat. Nobody wanted to, which could very well be what they were banking on. Then, when somebody did, he was killed by a single stone - could've very well been a fragile person that looked impressive from a distance.

As mentioned before, slings are incredibly deadly weapons.

But also as mentioned before, I don't think we need any kinds of explanations about martial prowess or fragility when there's no independent evidence for his existence in the first place.

[pendell]

Silly giant bringing a sword to a gunfight . Which is what a sling was, after all.

Inicidentally, Saul in the passage describes Goliath as a 'fighting man from his youth'. So it was likely he was a champion at arms, although how much of that was real skill and how much of that was max ranks in intimidate due to his size is up to question. Probably both.

Even if he had only average skill as a combat veteran, average skill plus huge mass makes for a very intimidating foe in single combat. There's a reason boxing categorizes by weight. Even the featherweight world champion is going to have problems against a middling heavyweight, and that's simply due to raw physical force.

...

And that, my friends, is why guns are called 'equalizers' .

..

Assuming, of course, the story is true at all, but I don't find anything especially unreasonable about the idea of a larger-than-average combat veteran being killed with a slingshot by a boy who wouldn't play by the rules, whatever they were in those days.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Lord Joeltion]

Anyway, I was talking about stories of entire populations of giants - not the existence of individual tall people in history.

Oh but there were accounts of an entire population of giants at some point in time. A time closer than you think by the way.

It's strange nobody mentioned yet the Great and Mighty Patagons, who ruled our continent for centuries, until the stupid white men brought the flu, and then they all died faster than you can say "God bless you".

I am of the opinion that pre-industrial humans didn't have a real account about the measures of the "average man". The idea that isolated societies craft a great misconception about "what is normal" or "humanly possible", doesn't strike me as odd at all. Not even to this very day. Which is sad, but still true.

[Grytorm]

For patagonians, really I think in part that might have been a result of miserable people far from home getting scared when they ran into people who might not have been to friendly.

Also, a possible reason for the widespread myths might be in part due to the whole Indo European thing, just if the Caucuses had a story of giants long long ago then that could explain the stories spread throughout at least most of Europe and even through to India.