Bringing the giants back!

Originally posted by Thorneblood
reply to post by Blue Shift

 

So, big humans would have poor eyes and bad organs but dinosaurs like T-rex had great eyesight and strong bodies that helped them dominate in an age of giant, vicious animals?

They didn't look very much like humans.

I would totally do this instead of my backpack idea. Krang had it right:

Originally posted by LUXUS
reply to post by alfa1

 

when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them

Human females could do it back then according to the bible.

if im not mistaken I read somwhere the women burst upon child birth

Originally posted by LUXUS
Some girls are a bit naughty though and if he dopped his shorts....you know all those girls that wear big earrings

my mum always said avoid girls who ware big earnings!

Originally posted by LUXUS
Im 6ft6 tall

She, evidently, spoke from experience

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


I don't get it!

reply to post by 35Foxtrot


You're not wrong, just applying a bit of information incorrectly.

Most (not all) insects breathe through tiny little holes around their bodies - so there is a limit on their size because after a certain point it's so riddled with tiny little holes they become a bit flimsy.
Heading further back in time though (like back in dinosaur times) there was a much higher oxygen content, so they could become larger.

- Which always makes me wonder - if you had spiders in a sealed tank with a higher oxygen level - could you grow giant spiders?

The era of Megafauna isn't related to oxygen levels though - infact certain huge specimens were around potentially as recently as 2000 years ago - which is quite remarkable when you think about it!

As for the subject at hand - (I like to read this topic whenever it comes up ) people saying that the human body doesn't scale up are missing actually fossil evidence that it does - I'm not talking about 30ft skeletons (that's from rebuilding an elephant body so that it stands upright - also where the legends of cyclops come from) but there were certain large species of hominid which were concurrent with modern man which would fit anybodies classification of "Giant" furthermore their skeletons were human like - so much so that their bodies could be held as evidence of the existence of giants for quite some time afterwards.

First (and by far the coolest) was Gigantopithecus which was between 10 and 12ft (from specimens we have on record - obviously there would be some variance) - current reconstructions show it as a giant organgutang - but as with most f these "reconstructions" it's only meat to provide a model.
news.nationalgeographic.com...

Second (and probably more useful for the giant hypothosis) is Meganthropus far more human, with a funny shaped skull and up to 9ft or so.
en.wikipedia.org...

The giants of Castelnau are proof that humans have been found over 3 meters tall!

The bones were discovered by the anthropologist Georges Vacher de Lapouge at the Bronze Age cemetery of Castelnau-le-Lez, France in the winter of 1890. His findings were published in the journal La Nature, Vol. 18, 1890 Issue 888.[1][2] The height of the individual was estimated at about 3.5 m (11 ft 6 in) according to de Lapouge, and the bones were dated to the Neolithic period, since they were found at the very bottom of the Bronze Age burial tumulus. The journal includes a photo engraving of what was identified as the humerus, tibia, and femoral mid-shaft of the giant compared to a normal size humerus in the center.

It is of some interest that in 1894, press accounts mentioned a further discovery of bones of human giants unearthed at a prehistoric cemetery at Montpellier, France (5 km Southwest of Castelnau) while workers were excavating a water works reservoir. Skulls "28, 31, and 32 inches in circumference" were reported alongside other bones of gigantic proportions which indicated they belonged to a race of men "between 10 and 15 feet in height." The bones were reportedly sent to the Paris Academy for further study.

Originally posted by KilgoreTrout

Originally posted by LUXUS
reply to post by alfa1

 

when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them

Human females could do it back then according to the bible.

Doesn't mention how many of those 'daughters of men' survived the birth though, does it?

I certainly won't be volunteering...

Look at the information about Big Louis on this site, his mother was 4 feet tall. yoopersteez.com...

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


"The bigger the hoop the bigger the ..... "

I actually learned that from my LITTLE sister when she was 15 and I was 19. SHM...

reply to post by MaxSteiner


Howdy

Your source shows 3 meters or 9 feet slightly more than some humans can make it too the other source said the other creature you were referring too was seven feet.

Tall humans are unusual but do happen but races of them of a standard size over 12 feet have not been found to my knowledge.

The human body does not scale up well.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Late 19th century claims of gaints were either frauds or by those who were poorly educated in skeletal identification and ostelogy, mammal bones except for skulls can be easily misinterpered as human and crushed skull cans be seen as human. One must also remember the strong bias towards finding 'gaints' due to the overwhelming dominance of the Bible on science in those early years.

Mastodon skulls are thought to have been the bases for the Greek legends about cyclops - as the Greeks were familar with ancient bones.

reply to post by Hanslune


the first one I linked to has had a size of 10-12 feet floated about on it (the one designated blaki) - admitadly all based on a tooth, but still we can dream

Originally posted by MystikMushroom
I would totally do this instead of my backpack idea. Krang had it right:

really love the backpack idea, lol tell ya what you get the giant and I'll sew the backpack!
as long as were bringing back giants lets bring back dinosaurs as well!

Originally posted by Hanslune
The human body does not scale up well.

Don't know where I got this, but it makes the point:

Somebody did a study of what a twenty foot human would look like

Large stubby elephant thick legs atop of which was a greatly expanded pelvis above which the body was enlarged to allow the lungs and heart to be much larger in porportion, small shoulders and short arms, thin neck and tiny head.

It being the opinion of that man that the brain would not scale up as it would be unable to gain enough oxygen if larger.

Kind of an 'elephant below and giraffe above', a pin headed one at that.

Originally posted by Hanslune
Kind of an 'elephant below and giraffe above', a pin headed one at that.

Kind of like this, but with way smaller arms:

reply to post by Blue Shift


Yep, I remember that most of the bipedal dinosaurs didn't have long thick arms either. Perhaps someone with more knowledge on dinosaurs could comment.

Originally posted by LUXUS
reply to post by KilgoreTrout

 

I don't get it!

She's saying your dad was apparently a giant.

Harte

reply to post by Hanslune


I know a fair bit about dinosaurs, on account of a wasted youth
Most bipedal dinosaurs did have smaller forearms, but this is largely due to the fact that they evolved from semi aquatic creatures in possesion of strong back legs (for swimming) making it easier to assume the bipedal stance.

That said there were dinosaurs with large "arms" for instance Therizinosaurus:

stkarnick.com...

the large arms are considered rather noteworthy on this beasty

The "raptors" like Deinonychus had fairly proportioned arms too.

I think it mainly comes down to utility though, most raptors were allegedly egg eaters and it's thought that wings evolved on dinosaurs, not for flight, but for enveloping prey (insects etc), where as on T-rex they were a bit redundant. Most of the famous dinosaurs are the result of vast epochs of evolution so they were fairly specialised, by contrast we mammals haven't really been around all that long.

Regarding human giants though, there are biological triggers that are known to cause gigantism, for instance island gigantism: en.wikipedia.org... and of course the abundance of food during Pleistocene Period saw many species increasing in size - I do think the more wild reports are a little bit optimistic, but there would certainly be areas where the population would be described as giants by more typical sized people

reply to post by honested3


I so tire of people calling the Fallen Angels demons. Please go study. The Angels are Angels. The demon spirits that roam earth are the disembodied spirits that came out of the dead nephilm and other half angelic/half human creatures. So no angels fallen or otherwise are NOT demons. They may have a "demonic" nature or in another words have a very evil disposition, but we are talking about two separate beings.

Ignorance denied!

reply to post by MaxSteiner


Hey Max thanks for the clarification I knew we'd have some passionate dinosaur infofanatics around here somewhere.

Yep that is one strange beastie.

Yeah a common thread that runs through humanity is that enemies, especially ones that beat you, were 'giants'..