http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/images/080903-oldest-skeletons_big.jpg

Is it just me or is that head huge?

I know Pre-"Clovis culture" averaged 7-8 feet tall. So sick of this pansy assing around that fact.

I know Pre-"Clovis culture" averaged 7-8 feet tall. So sick of this pansy assing around that fact.That's the first I've heard of that. Where did you get it? All I've ever read about pre-Clovis habitation of the Americas indicates that it's quite controversial to even regard it as a single "culture." It's very likely merely a bunch of unrelated adventurers who made it over here from different places in different times, and were unable to establish tribes that thrived and survived. They arrived, they reproduced for a couple of generations, they died out, and another group from somewhere else showed up five hundred years later. This happened at sporadic intervals until the first stable, successful groups migrated around 11,000BCE and their descendants populated the whole hemisphere.

So what we learn from one site is not necessarily indicative of the attributes of the people from another site. If the people at one camp were seven and a half feet tall, it doesn't mean the next group from some other part of Asia or Europe were too.

That said, it's not too amazing that the first humans to explore a continent might have been taller than the world average for their era. They were hunter-gatherers who had all the food at their disposal with no competition. That included game animals who had not developed strategies for avoiding human hunters. They probably had an enormous amount of protein and carbohydrates to eat so their children would have grown up to be bigger than they were.

Like the second- and third-generation Asians in the U.S.A.

That's the first I've heard of that. Where did you get it? All I've ever read about pre-Clovis habitation of the Americas indicates that it's quite controversial to even regard it as a single "culture." It's very likely merely a bunch of unrelated adventurers who made it over here from different places in different times, and were unable to establish tribes that thrived and survived. They arrived, they reproduced for a couple of generations, they died out, and another group from somewhere else showed up five hundred years later. This happened at sporadic intervals until the first stable, successful groups migrated around 11,000BCE and their descendants populated the whole hemisphere.

So what we learn from one site is not necessarily indicative of the attributes of the people from another site. If the people at one camp were seven and a half feet tall, it doesn't mean the next group from some other part of Asia or Europe were too.

That said, it's not too amazing that the first humans to explore a continent might have been taller than the world average for their era. They were hunter-gatherers who had all the food at their disposal with no competition. That included game animals who had not developed strategies for avoiding human hunters. They probably had an enormous amount of protein and carbohydrates to eat so their children would have grown up to be bigger than they were.

Like the second- and third-generation Asians in the U.S.A.

I agree with your adventurer theory to describe most(non-Clovis) finds in North America like say Kennewick man. There have been other finds of very large people found in South America and areas of the United states. "Shipped to the Smithsonian Institute" is usually the last we see of it. Dismissed as isolated Gigantism for the rest.

Hopi Legend has it that a race of huge people dominated their region in antiquity, similar legends exist is South America.

This skeleton dates before most reckoning of the Bering Land Bridge could have been used for the initial settlement. These people came from somewhere else, or at least some way else.

People lie, the earth does not lie. I am confident more finds will come to light, thankfully now that most countries keep these finds without sending them on long voyages or travels and get "lost". Many countries don't toss/dismiss finds that go against common theory either.

Hopi Legend has it that a race of huge people dominated their region in antiquity, similar legends exist is South America.

This skeleton dates before most reckoning of the Bering Land Bridge could have been used for the initial settlement. These people came from somewhere else, or at least some way else.

It's not an uncommon belief. The Greeks believed that the people of the heroic age were twice as tall as they were (hence they tended to think fossils were the bones of heroes). Giants appear as primeval figures in a number of Indo European cultures.

Is it just me or is that head huge? Doesn't look that big to me - looks like it's in the foreground of an underwater photograph.

The lack of skeletons from the nomadic early Americans makes it hard to say for sure, but I haven't seen any evidence that they were taller than the taller African tribes.

But humans in better circumstances do average a few inches taller than modern Americans - as in Denmark and other modern socialist countries now, or among the horse Reds of the North American plains years ago.

You have a point about it being an underwater photo.

Still watching this find intently...

In his journals, Colonel Percy Fawcett mentioned a journey he made near the Brazil/Peru border in 1914. His talked about meeting a tribe of people who were (going by his physical description of one who approached him) Neanderthals or some such related species. His described the man who approached him as naked and as hairy as a dog. He said that he and the three men with him heard the people speaking to each other the previous day, when they encountered them in the jungle; they had bows and arrows, and they lived in small village communities. Given that he was a very accurate observer, and hardly likely to be making the story up when he could be so easily contradicted, it seems there are somerelect poplutaions of very primitive people in the Amazon Basin. The meeting is described in the book 'Exploration Fawcett'.

Funny you should mention Fawcett. He was considered a bit of a nutbar, by the scientific community and was lost searching for his lost city (Of Z?). Anyway I think someone found it in 2005, a multistaged city totaling like 100,000 people, dwarfing most contemporary European cities.

Was he the one who took a picture of some kind of "ape-man" dead, propped up on a stick?

Anyway, that not really what I'm talking about regular humans of like basketball player or better size.

I know Pre-"Clovis culture" averaged 7-8 feet tall. So sick of this pansy assing around that fact.The last skeleton I read about was 5'3"

also, I think people then placed bodies in trees when they died, (I forgot what that is called) and so there just aren't many skeleton remains.