Primate Survivors & Fossils Found
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 27th, 2007
The Real Bigfoot and Genuine Bigfoot Tracks
Part 9: Primate Survivors & Fossils Found
by Mark A. Hall
Primate Survivors Recognized at Last
The Neo-Giants of the Pacific Northwest are one type of primate among several distinctly different primates that remain as elusive. To varying degrees they spread to different parts of the globe as part of the competition among advanced primates with intelligence superior to that of the recognized great apes.
Paranthropus sp. image courtesy of skullsunlimited.com
We are so familiar with animals like the gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans because they are not the brightest among our primate relatives. Those relatives have suffered for being unable to elude us. We kill them, lock them into zoos, and experiment upon them. Such fates have been successfully avoided by the Neo-Giants and others.
All those that remain “unrecognized” or “un-catalogued” B put it however you will B are smart enough to have competed for living space and resources with our direct human ancestors. Their inability to compete successfully was proven long, long ago. They have retreated and survive in areas we call wilderness. Now, when they put in appearances near human habitations, we do not easily recognize them for who they are.
The diversity of primates was apparent to me in the 1970s. I used the cases of appearances in the Dakotas and in Iowa to draw attention to the existence of different sources for tracks. I have discussed their presence at length in books and articles (such as The Yeti, Bigfoot & True Giants, Living Fossils, and Wonders Volume 6.) My views were incorporated into the book The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe. [48]
Over these same years the finding of new fossils for intelligent primates has been painting a new picture of how mankind has emerged over the past several millions of years. And the new picture is consistent with the survival of upright and intelligent primates other than humans into geologically recent times. The scientific establishment has been slow to acknowledge this fact. This is now changing with the announcement in January of 2003 that some famous names among primate experts think an examination of Bigfoot is necessary.
The paleoanthropological record will be easier to sort out when primatologists accept that several lines of primate evolution extend into the modern day. Where they came from will be matched with where they are now.
Serious studies need to be made of several surviving primates. The fame of Bigfoot made it easier for people to believe their eyes when they also saw True Giants, the Taller-hominids, and the apes of the Southern swamps. This has included a few of a remnant population of Neandertals in remote parts of Canada and Alaska. My work has not been based only on tracks. Instead, the differing physical descriptions and the details of what has been recorded as folklore have been successfully linked to specific types of tracks. In addition, fossil primates in distinct lines of evolution have been suggested as the ancestors of each type of creature.
Fossils We Have Already Found
When Benjamin Radford examined the last fifty years of Bigfoot history recently he began by describing how difficult the subject is. [49] You might have thought he was warming up to praising those who pursue Bigfoot for their remarkable perseverance and personal sacrifices in the face of such a task. But no. Instead he generalized the subject, tossing all mystery primates into one jumble, and quoted a few confused Bigfoot-seekers to bolster weak arguments about how nothing could exist. It is symptomatic of such treatments that the weak arguments are propped up by one enormous falsehood. His big lie was that no bodies or fossils have been found to indicate the presence of such primates.
The bodies. The bodies have turned up in Georgia in 1829, in Pennsylvania in 1972, and the famous case of “Jacko” in 1884 in British Columbia. [50] But human beings as a group have been totally unprepared to accept and deal with those cases. There are still more instances of captures of mystery primates for which we have some record. The false construction here is the implication that those bodies would have been treated properly back then in some way that does not even exist today. There are no “Bigfoot Body Examination Teams” standing by B not then and not now. The fact that those cases had no chance of a positive outcome for advancing knowledge is now used as an excuse to dismiss them and pretend, as Radford does, that they do not even exist.
The fossils. The primary example of fossils found is Homo gardarensis. The bones have not been entirely misplaced by scientists.
They have been mislabeled as a case of acromegaly and been put away at the Panum Institute in Copenhagen. The bones were found in Greenland in 1926 and formally excavated. Their peculiar identity was recognized by F.C.C. Hansen. Hence they were given the name H. gardarensis. When Hansen died, others declined to dispute the early mislabeling of them by Sir Arthur Keith. They swept the find under the rug where they have remained to this day. [51]
Other finds have been misplaced, leaving them lost for the time being. Some day they might be recovered if people will search at the University of California at Los Angeles and at the Smithsonian. Quite specifically, I am referring in the first instance to the Minaret Calvarium found in 1965 by a retired doctor, Robert W. Denton. It was also considered to be a remarkable find by a pathologist, Gerald K. Ridge. When the find passed into the hands of two scientists at UCLA, it was allowed to be stored in a museum warehouse where it is probably in a poorly labeled box awaiting re-discovery. [52]
The second instance involves bones sent to the Smithsonian. Some unusual bones were found in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Minnesota in 1968. [53] Dr. Richard Adams, identified as an anthropologist and leader of the university team that examined the bones, was quoted: “The skulls. . .may well represent a pre-Indian type of man that is more closely related to Neanderthal Man than any previously found. Their discovery tends to push the occupation of the Western Hemisphere by human beings way back.” And that they could “represent a remnant population of a primitive type of man who inhabited the North American continent long ago and somehow survived until comparatively recent times by living in isolated refuge areas.” [54] By the time this was revealed in 1972, the bones had been sent to the Smithsonian where Dr. Lawrence Angel could not find a record of them. The press noted: “He said this means the bones probably are not an important find.”
Bones might be lying around simply unrecognized for their importance. An example would be bones once in the possession of Samuel Eddy, at one time a curator at the James Ford Bell Museum in Minneapolis. Eddy died about twenty-five years ago. According to Dr. Charles Huver, a retired biology professor who worked with Eddy and told me about them, the bones had been found in a bog in northern Minnesota. They were kept unlabeled in Sam Eddy’s own collection. They were large, human-like bones, with a very thick Calvarium. Eventually his collection of odd bones was dispersed among the faculty at the University of Minnesota or just tossed all at a time when Eddy was on sabbatical. Huver recalled that a whale bone ended up as a garden ornament.
Tomorrow – Part 10: What Scientists Can Do & The Real Bigfoot
Originally published in Wonders for December 2002 (Vol. 7 No. 4) pp. 99-125.
©2003 by Mark A. Hall. All rights reserved.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Way to go Mark Hall! Well put.
What I have never understood about the scientific community is its constant inability to remain open minded on these subjects…as if finding new things will somehow destroy other work done (and I do believe this is exactly the problem…that if evidence comes to light contradicting old theories, that it mars past work done).
Again, and I beat this poor feller to death, the purpose of all of the scientific genres is to keep an open mind while looking for answers. The proper scientific method is NOT to come up with a theory and try to prove it even if it means ignoring or “not seeing” other data. The proper method is to generate ideas and hypothesis and then test them to see if what you thought would be correct…then if you are wrong, you get over yourself and see where the data leads you.
Sorry, bashing again, but it has merit. There are plenty of them out there bashing cryptozoology for no reason other than it threatens existing ideas about evolution and past history.
…alright, bring on the debate…
I think the argument re: no bones = no bigfoot has always been a tough one for me, until I began to study Native American history.
A couple of years ago I began a writing project about Desoto’s Expedition into the Southeast. In fact, he travelled as far north as Chicago and west to Texas. His incursion devastated the Indian culture and it is believed that the diseases he deliberately and unintentionally introduced killed off over 5 million ( yes 5 million ) Native Americans within 10 years of his “adventures”.
So, where are the bones of these 5 million people ? We have no mass graves, no huge bone finds ? Why ? They died in the open, entire villages dead within weeks of an outbreak of smallpox or influenza, they decayed in the open and their remains were reduced to humus and dust in very short order.
If we can’t find 5 million dead Mound builders, why be suprised that you can’t find the bones of a secretive creature who may live and die in the open in the wettest places on our continent?
Remains or fossils if they be found, are going to be incomplete, very fragmented and nearly impossible to date. So, good luck, but I’m not going to be dissuaded by the lack of fossil or bone evidence until I find the bones of Desoto’s victims.
Hmmm. Very interesting indeed. Fascinating stuff.
I for one am a staunch supporter of Hall’s interpretation of the Gardar remainss and have mentioned the remains in several groups in recent weeks. This actually is important because we really HAVE ‘had the bones’ for at least most of the past century and the fact simply has never been ‘officially’ acknowledged.
There actually are DOZENS of these finds in the literature, all of them ignored, but technically all you need is the ONE. The Gardar one does it for me, I could have gone with the Pagboche hand or other examples just as easily and be every bit as justified in saying that ‘yes, they exist and they are real’.
Oh dear. This is really disappointing. I was really impressed by Mark Hall to start with, but he seems to have thrown all the critical judgment he showed with regard to faked tracks out of the window here.
Hall is grasping at straws. You cannot hang any kind of theory on these few anomalous remains. I’m not saying that these don’t deserve closer examination (where they can be re-examined and aren’t conveniently or inconveniently- depending on your viewpoint- lost), and it might well be worth carrying out a survey of collections to pick out any remains whose true nature could have been overlooked. But none of this is any real support for Halls assertion that there are several surviving and unknown primate species, or that there are neanderthals living in north america.
From my admittedly limited knowledge of human anatomy (I work in an office with several physical anthropologists, and the girl next to me studies neanderthal skull morphology, so I think I’ve absorbed a little knowledge just by having such skulls sitting on the shelf staring at me every day), none of these pictured remains seem to be anything that could not be explained by normal human variation, or pathologies (that should at least be our null hypothesis).
The jaws (or is that the same jaw twice?) pictured show a conspicuous chin which is a uniquely Homo sapiens sapiens trait. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis is well known to have a very receding chin (as are other primates). Equally neaderthals are known to have a substantial supra-orbital ridge (as, by all witness accounts we can expect BF to have), while the skull pictured here has a distinctly modern human brow ridge.
In fact, the more I read this article, the angrier I get. Skeptics don’t need to misrepresent us when we come up with such tenuous, and unsupported crap. Ben Radford will be licking his lips.
And joppa- the analogy with native american remains does not work. The crucial difference is that while we may not have the remains of ALL the native americans who have died, we do have some (in fact many) remains.
With BF we have NONE. And not just that, we have no remains of any kind of primate in north america. Nor do we have any from the areas of north west siberia from where we can reasonably expect any such being to have traveled.
And incidentally, I don’t put any weight in the implication of several people that there is some kind of scientific establishment cover-up going on. Firstly, I do not think (from my experience of them) that scientists have the nous to organize such a cover-up. And secondly, I can’t imagine any scientist I know wanting to hush up the fact that there were, for instance, neanderthals in north america. That would be the scientific find of the century (if not the millennium) and would cement their reputation for all time. What scientists would not be willing to do is make such an announcement unless they had incontrovertible (or at least reasonably secure) evidence. The reason that no-one has made such a claim is not because there is some cover-up, it is because their is no such evidence.
I think I’ve said it before. The sasquatch stays unconfirmed by science for two reasons:
1) It’s pretty damn smart.
2) We think we’re smarter than we are.
Things-in-the-woods: You make some very good points. I winced more than once reading this.
Not that it changes my previous post any. If the big boy is out there, that’s why.
But one thing that really has me gritting my teeth is the “what about Jacko?” line of argument. Yup. What about him? That ranks right up there with Bigfoot invisibility and scientific cover-up among my teeth gritters. (The latter two arguments are not only ignorant, they’re arrogant. And dumb. They presume that science is so omnipotent that nothing – including whether caffeine and alocohol are good for you or not – [:-p] escapes its all-seeing scrutiny unless it is Beyond This Earth.
Jacko and fifty-year-old footprints – and skulls in drawers – are really the same thing. You gonna track ’em to a real animal? Hey, good luck with that.
If there’s a good point Hall is making here, it’s that people – especially scientists – can rationalize away anything that doesn’t fit their worldview. I mean why can’t they? They’re human, right?
(And remember that the Shanidar skull was originally considered to be a sapiens sapiens deficient. I give you Science, The Omnipotent.)
Lost-In the-Woods makes several erroneous statements about Neanderthals. He states that Neanderthals have no chin, and he is wrtong. He evidently does not know which end of the skull is the front or back. It does not matter in any event, because the skull in question is not specifically classified as a Neanderthal.
I have a degree in anthropology and while working on that degree I was a lab assistant for the antropology lab. I know all those skulls (casts) sitting on the shelves backwards, forewards and upside down. The Gardar remains are simply not human. Yes, you can explain them as pathological: Creationists explain Neanderthals as Pathological. As Hall notes, the cranium is not like Homo sapiens, and even in human acromegalics the shape of the cranium does not change that much. The profile of the braincase is parallel to that of Solo Man.
And it is BIG. Unfortunately, the photos here do not give any idea of the scale of this thing.
DWA: After all these hundreds of years it takes more than “smarts” to avoid humans intentionally hunting you. But I agree that humans who have not experienced Bigfoot underestimate their ability to move about literally under their noses undetected. I don’t pretend to understand this anymore than anyone else. But I do respect the fact that I know very little about these things 🙂
The Homo gardarensis mandible is larger than those of the Heidelberg Man discovered in Germany. The mandible of the Heidelberg Man is more than 40% larger by volume than the that of modern Homo sapiens.
daledrinnon: I’m gonna have to defer to the Skull People on skulls.
Where I winced was the capture stories and the presentation of the “lost bones” argument without better documentation than is given here. It runs perilously close to one of my bugaboos: defending something for which science admits no evidence by pointing to something for which there is either no, or extremely shaky, evidence.
There could be a metric ton of bigfoot remains in drawers. And we do have a peculiar propensity for simply tossing out remains we don’t understand, if the capture stories and the occasional odd news story are to be believed.
But we’d invest our time better searching for the animals that are out there, alive. I think that what the skeptics really feast on are what I call the Relic Follies; and I think that the precise reason is that relics bring us zero millimeters closer to finding a real animal. 50 years of it is enough to tell me so.
treeclaw: you’re right. It takes more than smarts.
It takes stupids. And as I said: we supply those.
I originally tried to post here a BFRO report of a Manitoba hunter who shot – and killed, with one bullet – an adult male sasquatch in 1941. (He saw a mass of hair in very dense brush and thought it was the wounded cow moose he was tracking.) Don’t know if the report will get posted; Loren’s techs were working on the link. But whether it does or not, the report – a long detailed conversation between the BFRO investigator and the hunter himself, in 2003 – sounds extremely plausible to me. And one wonders whether – and begins to doubt quite a bit if – that’s the only time it’s happened.
Let’s just say it’s a cinch bet that the hunter’s first reaction won’t be, get this out of the woods and I’ll make millions. When there’s a dead animal half again as big as you there are some daunting practicalities to consider. Like whether you’ll see a buck ever.
Oh heck, I just hope Loren and the guys fix the link. A worthy read. It belongs here because it illustrates the difficulties people don’t consider between remains and scientific confirmation and fame.
It ain’t obvious. And people’s conviction that it is obvious keeps the sasquatch, to science at least, inobvious.
I read a number of the installments of Mark Hall’s article here.
I don’t think one can say that Neanderthals exist currently. I don’t see any evidence for that. The closest thing is the blood(?) DNA evidence coming from the Basques in Spain, if memory serves. And they certainly don’t live in caves, or are inordinately hirsuite. Yes, they want their independence. But I don’t see how one could connect that notion with relic hominids. LOL
I think, until there is definitely hard materials in hand that show that we have indeed archaeo-humans or relic hominids, we should just shy away from this avenue of hypothesis. It muddies the waters, and causes distortion of the focus needed to get better information so that identification can be in hand for Sasquatch and the Almasty.
We do have decently intriguing evidence (for example, the Patterson-Gimlin film, the two videos from 1994 and 1996 that were shown in “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science” documentary) that points to a hominoid, however. A bipedal ape, that walks upright. That I can be open to, in a logically presented argument. I think there is something there.
But I won’t jump on any bandwagon that wants to (badly, it appears) start running around, saying, “We have Neanderthals! We have Australopithecines! We have….[insert fossil hominid here]..”
Occams Razor, please. The simplest, the least convoluted hypothesis may have a very good chance of being decently accurate. (Yes, I put caveats in.)
Non-scientists like the romance of proto-humans or archaeo-humans jumping around on the varying continents. Kind of like tapping into the themes and notions of that old silent film “The Lost World.” I think, from reading a lot of the comments posted here on Loren’s site, that many think that if it walks upright, and has a human-like arm swing, then…..it has to be human!!! Or a forest-dwelling Dutch uncle.
Not so.
Problem is, in gaining hard evidence, and getting the proof for existence, that can’t be affected by romantic notions.
We have to approach this “problem” as that there are large, bipedal apes presently unknown to science.
We should pursue the notion, romantic or not, of obtaining a specimen for definitive identification. Let the evidence gathered from the specimen dictate where things go.
Not wild flights of fancy.
A couple more comments, since I have a break coming up here at 10 AM…
I want to know more about this alleged body found in PA in 1972. I sat upright when I saw that…my brain went, “HUH?”…
Loren, get Mark to discuss that piece of information with more discourse, please. Right here on your site, if you can get him to do so. I want to know more.
Another item, relating to Sasquatch. When I was reading a number of the eyewitness reports over at the BFRO website, there were some reports of Sasquatch actually swimming–including under the water. That made me sit up and take notice. Loren, see if you can get more information on this to post a story. That would be very interesting to learn more about.
One of the hypoetheses being discussed behind closed doors is how come we humans have basically lost the overall hirsuiteness of the other primates. All sorts of discussions have been engaged in, with many hypoetheses. One of those that intrigues me personally is the hypothesis of the “water interval”–that is, that humankind between about 6 million and perhaps 3 million years ago went down to the sea, and started to adapt to ocean-living (or at least in the interfacing of land and ocean). One of the arguments to support this particular hypothesis up to this point is that humans are the only primates that can actually swim for very long distances (miles), and also dive and stay underwater for long periods (without the benefit of SCUBA apparatus). No other presently identified primate can do those things. (Not even the monkeys in Japan who are known to swim for brief periods.)
Yet, Sasquatch apparently can swim underwater (at least according to some eyewitness reports), with facility. And they remain very hirsuite. This intrigues me greatly.
I would like to know more about this.
greenmartian2007:
there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that the sasquatch is quite proficient aquatically. (There’s been recent evidence that gorillas ain’t bad neither, which has sort of shot holes in the theory that major river systems have largely determined gorilla distribution in Africa.)
The idea that the human loss of hair is an aquatic adaptation is, to me, yet another indicator that science is sometimes more guesswork than, well, science. Otters didn’t lose their hair, did they? But whales did. And maybe simply being aquatic had nothing to do with it, and maybe it did. Let’s also remember that an animal that spends lots ot time out of water – like the otter, seals and sea lions (extensively hunted for their fur) and, yes, the sas – and hasn’t developed clothing can’t really do without insulation. And on land, hair beats blubber, I’d think.
Oh. Guess I should add this.
Humans can’t swim. Unless they’re taught, that is.
I think it unlikely that an animal that can’t naturally swim – our swimming uses no moves from our natural mode of transportation, unlike the case with most quadrupeds – would have aquatic adaptations, although I guess I have to hold out the possibility of holdovers from a more aquatic past that have simply been retained for whatever reason.
Our swimming, like our flying, is a cultural thing, an outgrowth of our curiosity and mental adaptability, not a natural endowment.
Oh. Not sure whether I was premature or not in my statement about gorillas and water. But here’s the most interesting link I found:
Is it true that gorillas can’t swim?
What I was referring to was evidence gleaned in explorations in Gabon in the past decade, which largely led to the country designating about ten percent of its land surface national parks. Michael Nichols – a renowned wildlife photographer – got photos of gorillas entering water to forage, something, it was believed by most, that gorillas avoided at all costs.
But most sources don’t seem to have picked up on this.
Randome neurons firing:
If I have followed the gorilla research news correctly, the animals will wade, but not swim. There’s nothing anatomically obvious that would prohibit sasquatch, which has quite different body proportions and weight distribution, from being a good swimmer, though.
The early aquatic human hypothesis remains on the far edge of speculation. You’d think we’d have developed more sunburn-resistant hides (or short fur) and some webbing between our digits, at the least.
I’ve not seen any evidence that Jacko existed and was not just a media creation. If he did, his measurements match a large male chimp (granted, the presence of a chimp there and then would be anomalous, but not inexplicable.)
Body from PA in 1972? More, please.
Stories of lost bodies and bones are worthless as evidence, even if they are true, unless supporting evidence like casts or photos survives.
With all due respect to Mark Hall’s astonishing dedication and research skills, nothing he’s published makes me think Neanderthals in Canada and Alaska have any foundation in fact.
As I wrote in Shadows of Existence, the idea of several primate species, all unconfirmed by any hard evidence available for examination, scattered across most of North America, just requires too great a leap. If sasquatch exists, I predict it will be found to be a single species, more variable in appearance than chimps and gorillas are (though not as variable as humans) and based in the forests of the Pacfic Northwest, with some allowance for outlying bands and individual wanderers.
Regards,
Matt Bille
Matt:
I’ve been looking through links and swimming doesn’t seem to be something that’s documented in gorillas although, yes, wading is.
(I have seen one Michael Nichols photo of a wading lowland gorilla, and another of a silverback, out of the water, who looked quite thoroughly wet.)
I did resist posting a link to a most interesting paper on the evolution of wading behavior in the Hominoidae. Not the best day for links. I still have one or two hung up which you may or may not see.
Re: Jacko, I remember reading in at least one discussion of him that 19th-century newspapers in general were not above Making Stuff Up to boost circulation – something I kinda suspected anyway.
As to where the sas might be found:
1. I’m holding out the possibility of the FL “skunk ape” as a separate species and perhaps genus. (If it exists.)
2. There might be more than one population concentration of the sas, with a lot of seasonal migration. Concentrations of sighting reports seem to suggest this possibility. I think your supposition of one species of sasquatch, with considerable individual variation, is very strongly supported by what I’ve read in sighting reports. In fact, the individual variance – with strong tendency to a “center line” as in humans – is the thing that, to me, makes sightings the most compelling component of the evidence for the sasquatch.
Loren posted the necessary remark on the jaw size. As I mentioned, it might not be immediately apparent to a casual obsever.
Dwa: I have found your remarks to be generally sensible in these posts. I think you have made a number of valid observations on a number of topics I have seen you post on.
It just so happens that I AM a “skull person”: my specific area of expertise is in the comparison and analysis of human skulls, and especially the fossil varieties.
In everything else I am basically slumming–even when it is in the discussions about dinosaurs (although it is a lifelong passion of mine, I still only count as an amateur in that area)
daledrinnon-
OK, I’m willing to accept that you have greater knowledge of hominid skull anatomy. What I’m not willing to do is to let you misrepresent what I said.
I specifically didn’t say that “Neanderthals have no chin”. What I said is that Neanderthals (and other hominids, and extant primates) have a ‘receding chin’, and that the mandible pictured has a very ‘conspicuous chin’.
I’m not sure how you could disagree with that, unless it was you that was looking at the wrong end of the skull. The mandible may well be atypical of a modern human, but it is certainly also atypical of a neanderthal.
As daledrinnon says, that may be largely irrelevant, as Hall does not specifically say that it is a neanderthal. Of course, he doesn’t actually say what he thinks it is (just giving it a name is not the same thing). He has found an anomalous skull, and has used that to support the entirely vague idea of several extant and unknown primate species. The only specific claim he makes is that neanderthals still exist in canada.
You will also note that I didn’t say that this skull definitely is modern human (I, for one, don’t feel confident making such conclusions on the basis of a couple of not particularly good photos). What I said is that I see nothing that leads me to think it need be something else (which is why I said that our null hypothesis here should be that it is modern human- incidentally, I should hope that someone who has taken a degree in anthropology would understand that a null hypothesis is not an assertion of belief, but an heuristic tool meant to help in confirming the alternative hypothesis). And simply denying that this is a case of acromegaly or gigantism is not good enough for me- explain why it cannot be.
And as for the shape of the cranium, I need someone to explain why that, if not pathological, could not be a case of intentional cranial modification. From the examples i have seen, the shape of the crania does not seem out of the range of such modifications.
I am willing to be convinced. What I was railing against was the lack of justification for the claims Hall makes. I am still waiting for that information…
Incidentally, I’d also be very interested to hear what the rest of the “several erroneous statements about Neanderthals” that daledrinnon thinks I made were…
(As far as i can see I only made TWO statements in total- and they both happen to be correct; neanderthals had receding chins, and prominant eyebrow ridges).
There are probably more bones found in more recent times, but the government confiscates them to cover it up. It’s very possible, look at all the trouble they would have trying to find all these creatures to tag them.
DWA and greenmartian2007-
there are several interesting accounts of swimming sasquatch in the book ‘raincoast sasquatch’.
And I’m with Matt on the likelihood of multiple primate species in america- if BF exists, its almost certainly one species. If the skunkape exists, my bet is that it is just feral known primates (probably orangs).
And heres a bit more-
daledrinnon equates the idea that the pictured skull might be pathological with the creationist tactic of claiming Neanderthals skulls are pathological humans. That is an absurd analogy.
There are dozens of Neanderthal skulls (with distinct neanderthal bodies). Here we are considering one skull in isolation. That it might be pathological is a perfectly sensible suggestion.
Well, looks like I missed out on most of this debate but a lot of good comments here as usual. It’s unfortunate, but I’d have to say that I agree that if there are none of remains left to examine, then they are effectively unable to be used as evidence of anything. We can’t let any sort of desire for these reports to be real lead us to think that these stories are anything other than interesting possibilities of what could have been. I think the stories of these remains are intriguing, but I feel the hard truth is without the concrete evidence to substantiate these accounts, there is not a whole lot more practical use to be gained from them. There is either usable evidence there, or there is not. In the cases of these misplaced or lost bones, there is not. It is frustrating because it seems that cryptozoology history is littered with stories of lost or misplaced bodies and remains.
That being said, I think there is every possibility that remains or fossils could be out there. I specialize in zoology and biology rather than archeaology, but fossils are typically rare and these could just be in areas where they have not been stumbled across yet. How many digs are occurring out in the middle of the Pacific Northwest? Add to that the fact that new, groundbreaking fossils are being found all the time and some of these finds were even found years down the line among specimens already dug up and boxed away. I don’t think we are anywhere near catalogueing all of the myriad forms of life that have ever existed on this planet or indeed all of the species that have ever existed in North America. There is still the possibility of new, big finds, so I will not rule out the chance that remains of a Bigfoot type creature may be found at some point. I think with the lack of full fossil records, it would be assuming a lot to think that the lack of this sort of evidence thus far immediately points to this creature not existing.
Anthropology is not even close to something I know anything about. I had one anthro course in college. But I do wonder why we assume that neandertals were hairy creatures. Or why we conjecture that they and bigfoot are related. (If I’m following the discussion correctly).
As far as the conspiracy theory goes, I don’t believe there is any intentional cover-up. I do believe that evolutionists scientist are protecting the theory tenaciously and, of course, their reputations, life work, and tenure as well. I don’t believe any bones are going to prove or disprove any theory, nor do I believe that finding a living bigfoot, or for that matter, a living dinosaur would change people’s beliefs. There are always ways of fitting things into your worldview. Few will change their cherished beliefs when they’ve invested so much of their lives in it.
mystery_man-
You are right, there is plenty of possibility for new fossil discoveries to be made. In fact, if BF exists we WILL eventually find the fossil evidence.
I just don’t see any reason to think we’ve found it yet.
daledrinnon: I’m an amateur, or worse, in virtually any area conceivable with regard to cryptids.
Even psychology! ;-D
Which is what my ref to “skull people” was getting at. I have to leave the conversation when fine points of anatomy are getting what I’ll call the “full Grover” treatment (Krantz, not the Muppet).
But it is funny to me how stuff you’d think was interesting enough (if true) for something to come of, nothing seems to come of. I can’t help wondering how much, and of what, is lying unlabeled in a drawer someplace.
I’m just not too sanguine about that search leading us to the sasquatch. We’re in The Golden Age of Cameras, and there, I think, lies the best bet. Still, if this gets anyone looking through the dusty archives in a place where a lead might lie, I’m all for it.
Great discussion as usual. mystery_man beat me to the fossil evidence point – no fossils don’t mean it doesn’t, or hasn’t, existed. The vast majority of creatures that have lived or are living will leave no fossil evidence.
With that in mind, don’t hold your breath things_in_the_woods, we need you here!
things-in-the-woods:
If anything leads me not to pass out “Skunk Ape 2008” bumper stickers just yet, it’s that a lot of the hairy hominoids (am I the only one for whom the more specific – and to me less likely – “ids” is like nails on a chalkboard?) in FL seem to be described as sasquatch. I’ll go one further; don’t think I’ve read one that sounds like something other (but I’m not done yet :-D).
Two apes in FL? Well, I guess. But I couldn’t tell you what evolutionary fillip would lead to it. Other than Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Hey Who Left The Orang Car Open…?
Consider this fact alone. Native Indians, NA, were the world’s best trackers if not simply the best ever. If they failed to track down “bigfoot” I seriously doubt any white man will do better. Much less find any substantial evidence of their existance. If there was anything to be found, the NAs (who were aware for countless milleniums of BF’s existance) would have found something substantial. Many of the tribes even go so far as to suggest BF’s are not ordinary flesh and blood zoology as the rest of the us on this planet.
So what does that mean you say? I am not certain but to say we may never gain BF evidence through conventional means. While it is true that there’s still many zoology life to be discovered. I doubt anything the size and potential of BF can be (hidden this long) discovered by studying bones. From the few things I’ve seen so far it appears, to me, we are left with a few authentic BF tracks and a few strands of hair which DNA forensics cannot indentify for certain. In another words we are left grasping at straws which was mentioned all to many times here.
The most troubling aspect in the BF research (as you’re well aware) is the magnitude of of hoax and frauds emobroilled for the purpose of self promotions and commercial profits. This just makes it so much harder to study already a very difficult subject. In summary I don’t believe we’ll ever come up with credible BF material evidence using conventional means to track and study wildlife. That is if BF can even be considered a “wildlife”.
treeclaw: the First Nations were well acquainted with the sas, and most of them considered him a part of the local fauna, not a spirit or a paranormal entity. Almost all First Nations had a name for “giant ape.” They didn’t consider him an animal to hunt, but another nation, generally not to be messed with. (The grizzly too, but he fell on the “hunt” side of the line, albeit not a jaunt; the Plains Indians painted for war when going after him.) I have a theory that long before the white man arrived on this continent, the First Nations might have hunted the sas too, and decided it was NOT a good idea.
Grover Krantz once did something interesting, circulating pictures of Columbia River rock carvings of what appeared to be images of the local “hairy men” to scientists, to get their opinions of what was being depicted. To quote Krantz: “Zoologists who did not know their source unanimously declared them to be representative of nonhuman, higher primates; those who knew the source insisted they must be something else!”
You really DO see what you want to, and don’t what you don’t, eh?
But oh yeah, the First Nations were quite knowledgeable of these guys. We just blew them off; explorers probably got a lot of data that never was passed down as anything but charming legend, and never followed up.
I think the Indians knew what – and where – they were. We just weren’t interested.
The point of this particular discussion IS about the remains under question.
I hate to be blunt, but most of this discussion begs the issue and goes on to talk about side issues.
In this case, several people admit to not being expert enough to advance an opinion on the remains and then go on to say that the Gardar remains are not evidence.
The remains are indeed evidence, as adequate as any fossil evidence anthropologists usually talk about. Peking Man (Zhoukoudien Homo erectus) fossils have all been lost also, yet the fossils are important enough to be on ALL the books.
As far as the Native Americvan angle goes, if these remains are valid and are indeed Homo-non-sapiens, they are PEOPLE of a sort and the native opinion is correct.
As far as the stone heads Krantz was speaking of go, I had a photo of one from a datable archaeological context from one of my textbooks and I pt a copy in my cryptozoology group. Opinions were mixed. I also had an Olmec statuette of what looked like a gorilla AND an Aztec statuette representing something with an ape’s head but human feet: the evidence definitely stands for more than one hairy unknown, with didtinctly contradictory anatomy between the types, hard as it may be to accept.
It would help if the DNA evidence were better coordinated: several hair samples have been analyzed, but no effort has been made to compare the DNA of different samples with one another, so far as I know. No effort has been made to coordinate DNA comparisons between these samples and Neandertal DNA.
As far as “Not looking at the fossils” goes, this strikes me as a particularly snobbish exclusion of a possibly productive avenue of exploration. These things had to come from somewhere. There are not only specific anatomical correspondences between purported remains (Pangboche hand, Iceman, Gardar skull, you name it) and the fossil forms. More than that: certain remains show anatomical correspondences that would go by most college-level professors teaching anthropology. And this goes for the footprints as well as the bones.
Most of this business about “Don’t look at the fossils” seems to come from people that are saying “That is outside my field”. “Outside my field” does not give grounds for saying that there is no evidence that the speaker cannot recognize.
daledrinnon: you may be right.
And in the last 50 years that hasn’t gotten us anywhere.
Maybe a public poll would show that 80% of the populace believe the sasquatch exists. Or maybe it would go 80% the other way. Not much progress since 1967. Or 1958. Yeah, we’ve added tons of detail to the picture. But science still ain’t buying.
*I* hate to be blunt. But it’s clear. Science will never accept that “the remains are indeed evidence, as adequate as any fossil evidence anthropologists usually talk about.” They simply won’t. There it is.
Not unless someone brings them incontrovertible evidence that the big guy is among us now. Period.
How do we know? 50 years of evidence is how.
I’d love to see myself proven wrong on this, by someone with brains finally convincing someone with money that hard evidence in our possession now means a trail warm enough to follow.
So far, zip. And saszoology continues to come out of the paychecks of its practitioners’ REAL jobs.
Daledrinnon- I think that fossils are very valuable evidence indeed if they are around to be studied. I agree that it is an immensely important avenue of research and I hope you do not think my own previous comment was saying in any way that they were not. I think if the fossils can be found and properly studied, then they will be highly valuable. The problem is it seems to me that most potential fossils of Bigfoot have been misplaced or lost over the years, so where does that leave us? The Gardar remains apparently were improperly studied and I wonder what the deal is there. I definitely think there is a possibility there could be something to them but at this point in time, I would not jump to too many conclusions about them without further study. I feel it would be just as irresponsible to assume that they are Bigfoot remains as it is for anyone to write them off completely. We cannot look at what we want to see, but what the evidence leads us too. As for the other remains that have allegedly come and gone over the years, they are not of much use if they are not available for scientific evaluation and so should not be considered as evidence within the data set. Whether it is one’s field or not, there has to be something to study. Once again, I think there could very well be physical remains of Bigfoot out there, and I think it is very important for these to be found. But alleged remains that were lost long ago do not constitute evidence no matter how much we would like them to be.
People are people, whether Native Americans or Recent Americans. Why would we be better or worse at finding them now? They are what they were: unfindable. Where is the variable? How has that dynamic changed? Any increase in our technology is countered by our loss of tracking/trailing skills, and their increase of awareness of our new behaviors. Noises and bait are for animals. Appeal to their sense of humor and curiosity. They already know we’re here; they simply have no use for us.
Ok daledrinnon-
if you can pull me up on your speciality regarding skull morphology, i can pull you up on mine- archaeology
You say;
“I also had an Olmec statuette of what looked like a gorilla AND an Aztec statuette representing something with an ape’s head but human feet” and use this to support your claim (based otherwise apparently largely on the unfortunately unavailable for study bones) that “the evidence definitely stands for more than one hairy unknown, with didtinctly contradictory anatomy between the types, hard as it may be to accept.”
This approach to human cultural depictions is just silly. Just because people have made depictions of something doesn’t mean it exists- there is such a thing as human imagination and creativity.
Because we have drawings of unicorns exist does it mean unicorns exist? No. Because we have drawings and models of mickey mouse does that mean that mickey mouse exists? No. Does the fact that 32,000 years ago the humans at Hohlenstein-Stadel carved a figurine with a human body and lions head mean that during the last ice-age a race of lion-headed men existed? No.
As it happens, I do believe that there may be depictions of BF or other unknown primates (indeed, if those creatures exist, it would be quite inexplicable if there weren’t), but the fact that you can produce a few carvings and statues that look kinda ape-like is nowhere near enough to support your claim that there is ‘definately’ evidence for such primate species.
All these things- footprints, anomolous skeletal fragments, depictions- are interesting. But they are being vastly over-interpreted, and being asked to carry far too great a weight of interpretation.
And it is probably partly for that reason that they are perhaps largely ignored by scientists. If we give a scientist this kind of fragmentary evidence and say THIS PROVES BIGFOOT EXISTS they are just going to treat us as some kind of wierdos. Present the same evidence and say ‘I wonder what this is?’ and they might take us- and the evidence- a bit more seriously.
Anyway, sorry to stray off the topic of the bones somewhat, but you did start it… 😉
and mystery_man-
I’m blue in the face, but optimistic. Now, where’s my trowel?
Sorry, that last one shoulda been for MBFH- I guess holding my breath is making me light-headed!
Things-in-the-woods- I agree completely with your evaluation of depictions of various fantastic beasties throughout the ages. Some may have existed, or maybe not, who knows? They are just representations, they could be complete fabrications for all we know and to read anything into them without other supporting evidence is jumping to conclusions, I feel. They remain intrigueing, yet they are not enough to consider hard evidence of the existence of these creatures. I would hope that people in the future would not look at representations from modern times and think that all these things must have been real without looking into it further.
As far as the use of these bone fragments and what not, i largely agree. If these are remains that are supposedly so useful as evidence, if that is the case, then why is Bigfoot not recognized by science yet? If this has been enough to be used as evidence of other species before, then why not in this case? I think it should be considered that they were either poorly evaluated or not considered all that important. I really do not believe as some do here that science neccesarily has it in for Bigfoot (although understandably there is skepticism). I feel that if the evidence is there and it is strong and verifiable, then it will be considered. In my opinion that is all the scientific community demands and unfortunately as far as hard, undeniable evidence goes, Bigfoot has been coming up wanting. I may get railed by some posters here for saying that, but that is the situation as far as I see it. Great circumnstantial evidence and some compelling possible evidence, but nothing to bring to mainstream science that will verify the existence of this creature. This is not, I feel because science wants to deny the existence of Bigfoot, but rather the evidence is just not acceptable without a shadow of a doubt yet. I think it is not unreasonable to think that perhaps these remains that have been found were perhaps just not enough to amount to anything in the end and maybe there was good reason that they were never pursued besides the old chestnut “science doesn’t want to believe.” I think perhaps these remains were not as useful as some believe them to be and that is why they were not enough to dramatically change anyone’s thinking. There have been some off the wall things accepted into science after enough evidence was presented, why should Bigfoot be any different?
That being said, I do think there is every possibility that the evidence could be out there and I mean concrete stuff that science can really dig into. I am not a “denialist” at all and I am very willing to consider what is presented. But going out and finding it is where the focus should be, not speculating about long lost remains that cannot be studied at present. I think if something is shown to the scientific community and it is undeniable, I don’t think there is any reason why it would not be given importance.
DWA: Indeed, I’ve read from the internet there are Native Indian tribes who believe BF is a substantial, physical reality just like the bear and the moose. Given the extra ordinary abilities of these BF creatures it would be interesting to hear how any human were able to hunt them. Which then brings me back to my previous musing. If at one time they were able to hunt and kill BF why couldn’t we get a native expert to track one down for observation? For example, our government has recently recruited a group of native indians to help track down Bin Laden in the remote mountains of Afghanistan. Also, we have numerous historical accounts of expret trackers who’ve successfully & relentlessly( remember the movie “sundance kid”?) hunted down lone outlaws through the wildlands filled with everything through swamps, stream beds, rocky beds for hundred if not thousand of miles. Yet we cannot with BF not even once. I have no doubts about the BF phenomena and that it’s real. IMHO, the real question is, what or who BF really is?
Daledrinnon: Personally I would not rule out any physical evidence that might relate to BF. The question is just how compelling and relevant is it to the concerns of BF’s existance. Of course this I would have to leave entirely to those who, like yourself, make it their hobby/profession to study these puzzles of bone fragments. I concur with your sentiments on the current lack of progress with BF DNA analysis. Much of this research lethargy is probably attributed from all the fakes and frauds heaped on top of a few strands of authentic fragments.
mystery_man-
that was pretty much what i was trying to say just much more reasonably and concisely said.
thanks.
This page claims to have Hall’s recreaton of the skull.
While these pages show skulls and jaws of people who did have acromegaly:
Acromegaly & Gigantism
A deformed skull with enlarging hand and feet in a young female
Acromegaly & Gigantism
Now check out this page that compares the jaw of Heidelbergensis and the Gardar jaw.
And compare to this image of a skull with acromegaly, look at the jaw.
Look at the part of the jaw that attaches to the skull in the Gardar jaw, see how long it is compared to the Heidelbergensis jaw. Now look at the x-ray of the acromegalic jaw and the area that attaches to the skull. Also stretched out. Also the prognathism, and the deformity of the Gardar jaw. Also in the Acromegalic skulls, notice the pronounced brow ridges, and the occipital region which is swollen.
This may be a side issue, but a good point was brought up. By themselves, all these anomalous hairs tell us little, and scientists can easily dismiss them. But if they were all to be compared together, and a commonality were to emerge from the majority of them, well, that would be less likely to be so easily dismissed, especially if they’ve already been compared to human hair, as well as sheep, yak and other hairs that may be used for hoaxes and no matches have been found.
This, I think, should be the next step. Unfortunately, as these hairs are owned by any of several dozen separate people and organizations, getting them all to cooperate seems the most daunting part of this task, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be attempted.
And since the “H. gardarensis” remains are still available for study, for heaven’s sake someone should study them! Meldrum, perhaps?
Meldrum, I must hasten to note, is not the answer to everyone’s prayers. Jeff is great with primate feet, and a specialist in studying unknown primate feet. But that doesn’t mean he would be helpful in examining skull fragments, as Grover Krantz was.
Nope, appreciate that an authority on paleoanthropology, with a subspeciality in cranial fossil investigations would have to be called into the research. But first, the Homo gardarensis remains would have to be released for study, and therein seems to be the political barrier.
This page has an illustraton that is a recreaton of the Gardar skull said to be by Mark Hall:
http://home.att.net/~mhall.bigfoot/
Notice the deformation in the occipital region.
This page states that acromegaly doesn’t affect the occipital region:
http://s8int.com/giants17.html
But this page shows acromegaly affectng the occipital region:
http://www.medstudents.com.br/endoc/endoc8.htm
Some other pics of acromegaly:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.e-radiography.net/radpath/a/acromegaly1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.e-radiography.net/radpath/a/acromegaly.htm&h=443&w=418&sz=25&hl=en&start=4&um=1&tbnid=4AIlCokbyRSGBM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dskull%2Bwith%2Bacromegaly%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
Now look at this pic of a skull with acromegally and compare to the Gardar jaw, see the same prognathism in both jaws. Also notice the extended part of the jaw that hinges onto the skull (the neck and condyle):
http://www.e-radiography.net/ibase5/Skull/slides/Skull_acromegaly_2.jpg
And see the comparison of the Gardar jaw and the Heidelbergensis jaw in these 2 sites, see how the Gardar jaw also has that extended hinge on the top of the jaw (neck and condyle).
http://s8int.com/giants17.html
http://home.att.net/~mhall.bigfoot/
Compare to this page illustrating a normal human mandible:
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/gray/illustrations/figure;_ylt=A0LaXp8joQxGrHsAaIFtHokC?id=176
Thanks Loren, my fault for assuming a speciality Meldrum doesn’t have. What, specifically, is the political hold-up, if I might ask? Surely someone, somewhere, would want to study the remains, regardless of the possible CZ interpretation of them?