This account seems to have all the features that should attract the giantologists:
Giant stature? Check.
Double teeth? Check
Vanished race? Check.
Unlike the stories of giants from Ellensburg, Washington, however, this account does not seem to have become a standard piece of the evidence in the case for ancient giants. Why not? Because the details provided in the story make it clear that the skeleton in question was neither of gigantic stature nor in possession of concentric rows of teeth.
The article specifies that
“Among the bones excavated from a burial mound on the mesa were a woman’s femurs measuring nineteen inches, a length which indicates that this aboriginal giantess must have been at least seven and a half feet tall.”
So, the height estimate of 7’6” (90”) is based on a femur 19” long: stature = 4.7 x femur length? That’s pretty generous even by the standards of those looking for giants. The “rule of thumb” applied at Ellensburg was only 4 x femur length (which would come out to 6’3” in this case). If we plug the length of 19” into the same formulae I referenced in the Ellensburg post, we get stature estimates ranging from 5’4” to 6’1”. That’s a bit different from 7’6.”
The headline of the story proclaims “Skulls of a People That Had Double Teeth All Around.” As I discussed in this post, the phrase “double teeth all around” was commonly used in nineteenth century America to describe a set of teeth that, because of their worn state, appeared to consist entirely of “double teeth” or molars. The two discussions of the teeth in the article make it clear that this is exactly what is being described:
"He found stone implements and pottery of extreme rarity, and the bones of a race all of whose teeth were molars or grinders.”
“Look at those teeth,” said Dr. Cole, tenderly fondling the skull of the giantess. “She has no incisors, no cutting teeth, in front, as have all the other races of which I have any knowledge. She has grinders all around, and so have the other skulls. That shows they were grain-eaters rather than meat-eaters.”
You really can’t get any clearer than that: the phrase "double teeth all around" was being used specifically and intentionally to describe a dentition that appeared, because of wear, to be composed entirely of grinding teeth.
What Do Giantologists Think of This Case?
This is a good question. This is a pretty clear case of an article proclaiming a “race” with “double teeth” that contains at least one “giant.” So why isn’t this part of the standard case for ancient giants? Perhaps because this article makes it very clear that this “giant” is not actually a giant and that these “double teeth” are not anything unusual. But doesn’t dismissing this article from the case for ancient giants demonstrate that one understands the difference between “double teeth all around” and concentric rows of teeth?
There are four possibilities:
- The giantologists have seen this account and don’t accept it.
- The giantologists have seen this account and accept it as evidence of giants.
- The giantologists have not seen this account, and now, having become aware of its existence, will accept it and start using it as evidence.
- The giantologists have not seen this account, but now, having looked at it critically, will not accept it.
This story turned up in a basic newspaper search, so I am very doubtful that the giantologistis have not seen it (i.e., 3 and 4 are not likely). That leaves the first two possibilities. I’m curious to hear what the giantologists make of this account. By what rationale or criteria would it be accepted or rejected? What would happen if you applied those same standards to other, less-detailed accounts?
Following is the complete text of the story from the Washington Bee (November 4, 1899). As with the Ellensburg skeletons, there may be other versions of the story out there. This account is number 214 in my database.
A BUILDING THAT HOUSED 6,000 CLIFF DWELLERS
A Ruined Aboriginal City on a Cliff a Thousand Feet High –Skulls of a People That Had Double Teeth All Around—Some Remarkable Relics.
The cliff on which the unexplored ruins stand rises a thousand feet above the surrounding country. On one side of the isolated rocky mass is the valley of the Santa Fe River, on the other that of the Santa Clara. Up to 600 feet is a shelf which furnished a nesting place for the Cliff Dwellers of nobody knows how many centuries ago. In the soft pumice stone they burrowed dens for their families. Eventually the original shelters in the cliffs grew to be a great warren. Room after room was hewn out until the rows were four or five deep. Under the shelter of the overhanging cliff, walls were built, extending the rows of rooms. The Cliff Dwellers were sheltered from rain or storm and their homes were inaccessible for their enemies.
Not satisfied with their rock caverns, the Cliff Dwellers climbed upward, and on the mesa, 400 feet above the shelf on which the caves opened, built a communal dwelling.
This mesa is about three-quarters of a mile wide and a mile and half long, which cliffs all about and the best opportunities for defense. On its edge was reared a watch tower of granite, whose height Dr. Cole believes to have been not less than sixty feet. The blocks were painfully carried up the 1,000-foot cliff, for the nearest granite deposits are at a considerable distance. For greater security a wall was built across the middle of the mesa.
On this rock platform, 1,000 feet up in the air, there stand to-day the ruins of two communal dwellings, one evidently much older than the other. The older dwelling is as yet untouched, and what little exploration of the more modern one Dr. Cole had time for amounts to a mere scratch on the surface.
There were not less than sixteen hundred rooms in the larger building in its prime, says Dr. Cole, and probably two thousand. The building measured 240x300 feet. It was blocks of stone measuring six by six by fifteen inches, quarried from the cliffs below, and carried up by the workmen. The rooms were roofed with timber, and the walls then carried higher. In the centre was a great court, a common kitchen for all, from which radiated immense numbers of rooms. The building spread with the growth of the community until it was three stories high and the rooms stretched away twelve deep from the central court, with smaller courts here and there. Dr. Cole estimates that the population averaged about three to a room, which would make between 4,800 and 6,000 people dwelling in the immense pueblo, besides those who lived in the cliff caves.
The rooms at the sides of the communal dwelling averaged about fourteen feet in size. On the upper stories they were mostly smaller, some being only seven by fourteen, others seven by twenty-one. Some rooms were found as large as fourteen by twenty-one feet.
With the trophies of his summer’s explorations spread out about him, Dr. Cole has turned his parlor into an anthropological museum. One table is covered with water jugs and incense pipes, the sofa hidden under stone axes, mortars, pestles, weaving shuttles and pottery. Another table is decked with a row of grinning skulls and huge crossbones; beneath it comfortably repose all the parts of a skeleton, from the toe bones to the shoulder blades, waiting to be wired together, and strewn about are bows and arrows, baskets, jugs of twisted twigs, made water-tight by pitch; modern Indian pottery, photographs by the score, and a stump of petrified wood. The skulls are a particularly valued possession.
“Look at those teeth,” said Dr. Cole, tenderly fondling the skull of the giantess. “She has no incisors, no cutting teeth, in front, as have all the other races of which I have any knowledge. She has grinders all around, and so have the other skulls. That shows they were grain-eaters rather than meat-eaters. The foreheads are high and the shape of the skull shows intelligence, but notice how curiously they are flattened at the back.—Lost Angeles Times.