Archaeologists are investigating claims about a long-lost group of giant humans that stood up to 10 feet tall and lived in caves in the southwestern United States.
Excavations inside a cave in Lovelock, Nevada, since 1912, have uncovered large human skulls, 15-inch sandals, and enormous handprints that have continued to spark the curiosity of scientists and the public for more than a century. .
Stories about these ‘Lovelock Giants’ come from Native Americans who told stories of a brutal tribe of red-haired and pale-skinned invaders who waged war on local tribes, before eventually becoming trapped in a cave and exterminated.
According to archaeologists, the story is likely an exaggeration of the facts or even a pure fabrication, but some of the evidence continues to encourage believers.
The entrance to Lovelock Cave in Nevada, where two miners accidentally stumbled upon the remains of dozens of ancient people, some of whom were reportedly abnormally tall.
These remains of shoes were found during the excavations of Lovelock Cave. They were made for feet that would have been the equivalent of a size 29 in the US.
It all started when a pair of miners first discovered the gigantic remains in 1911.
They were there looking for guano, the droppings of birds or bats, which has long been a valuable source of fertilizer and an ingredient in gunpowder.
But as they dug deep into the guano, these searchers found more than they bargained for: more than 60 human skeletons.
And some of them were reportedly extraordinarily large: between twenty-five and eight feet tall.
“One of his great finds was a skeleton, found about twenty miles south of Lovelock, Nevada, which shows that the body of which it was a frame was exactly seven feet seven inches tall,” according to the 1935 biography of John T. Reid, a mining engineer who worked at Lovelock.
“He is one of the ‘giant men’ of an ancient race whose skeletons were unearthed in central Nevada.”
There is no evidence of this find, but excavations of the cave in 1912 and 1924 revealed thousands of artifacts.
Many of these finds were as expected: baskets, duck calls, arrowheads, and ceremonial objects carved in animal shapes.
But there were also some extremely strange finds, including giant sandals that looked like they had been worn.
These shoes, approximately 15 inches long, would roughly translate to a US size 29 shoe.
Radiocarbon dating later showed that the human remains and plant material in the cave ranged from 2030 BC to 1218 BC.
Another strange find was a handprint apparently etched into the stone that looked twice as large as an average human hand.
Reports from these excavations seemed to increase the size of the giants: in 1931, they stood between 8.5 and 10 feet tall.
Surprisingly, some of them had red hair, a stark contrast to the local Paiute Native American tribe.
Although its existence may remain a mystery, oral tradition may offer some clues.
The area’s native Paiute tribes tell stories of a barbarian group called the Si-Te-Cah, a group that supposedly moved into the area 3,000 years ago.
According to Paiute mythology, the Si-Te-Cah began to wage war on each other and their neighbors, and they also had red hair.
The accounts of the 16th century Spanish conquistador Pedro Cieza de León seemed to corroborate the existence of a fierce and mysterious group of red-haired barbarians.
He collected a story in Peru about a race of giant men who ‘arrive by sea on reed rafts in the manner of large ships; Some of the men were so tall that from the knee down they were as long as the length of an ordinary man.
This story is consistent with native Peruvians crossing Lake Titicaca in woven reed boats.
According to Paiute legend, the tribes eventually united to fight the Si-Te-Cah.
They chased them into a cave, shot them with arrows and lit a fire in their mouths.
Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, a member of the Paiute, was a historian. In 1883, she wrote a book about the Paiute that did not mention giants, but did mention barbarians.
Chief Poito Winnemucca of the Paiute Tribe was the father of Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins. His tribe was native to the area where Lovelock Cave was discovered.
Some of the invaders died from arrows, others from fire, and still others from smoke asphyxiation.
According to the stories, all the Si-Te-Cah died in that skirmish.
And, in fact, there is archaeological evidence of a large fire at the mouth of the cave.
But some historians have different explanations for the evidence.
First, the “giant” remains may have just been tall people, according to a University of Nevada study that showed they were only about six feet tall, not eight or 10.
A history book by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, titled Life among the Paiutes: their mistakes and complaints He makes no mention of the giants, but he does mention the barbarians.
And historians have noted that aging in dry, desert conditions can cause dark hair to turn red, which could explain the redhead remains.
Furthermore, historian Adrienne Mayor wrote in her book Fossil legends of the first Americans that local businessmen may have simply exaggerated the size of the human remains to stimulate tourism in the region.
The Winnemucca, Nevada History Museum currently houses many of the artifacts found in Lovelock Cave.
A 2014 crowdfunding effort to further investigate the caves. I only got $10.