The Conquistadors encounters with Giants.. Worth you time to read if you like giants ?

There have always been giants roaming the earth...I see no reason to discount any written report and I do not see any reason to cover it up.

Blackmarketeer
reply to post by 727Sky

 

Old sailing ships and head clearance; costumes in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and other places, people seemed to be very small. I have read some Europeans during the 15th century had an average height of 5'7" but most men shrank during the 16th through the 18th centuries due to bad diets. Vikings seemed to be a tall stocky lot in some cases. Hard to find real numbers so I just go with clothes and ships

Regarding averages in Europe in that era, even the Vikings had only an average height of about 5'-6" to 5'-7" (167cm to 170cm) - based on skeletal remains. The rest of Europe was indeed shorter, as you said.

In North America there have been a number of east coast skeletal remains of native indians of over 6', some even approaching 7' in height. These were not averages though.

To conquistadors, they must have seemed huge - tall, robust and healthy. No wonder they were awed.

edit on 24-2-2014 by Blackmarketeer because: (no reason given)

At that time yes, globally and especially in northern europe we where still coming out of a cold period called the little ice age which had killed off the people of Greenland, skeletal remains there show them going from about six foot to about five foot in only a few generations as a result of starvation and malnutrition and of course individual height's vary but when the viking's exploded from the north in there great expansion it was because of a law passed which meant only the eldest could inherit so his brothers would be his servant's which meant they had to go and get there own land and bacause the mild weather which prevailed for several hundred years up until the little ice age had allowed the nordic population to explode and they were well fed and large men.
Of course non of us were there but in my case and most people on this thread My ancesters were among those viking's.

reply to post by 727Sky


Great thread I wasn't aware of some of this information, then again I'm not really on the up and up with history on this kinda thing.

Always good to learn something new.

Star and flag.

-SAP-

Hazon
Just for a little perspective here is a pic of Earl Boykins 5'3" next to Shaq 7'1"...

I'd think if I was a conquistador and I ran into a couple of dudes of this stature it would have left an impression

What a great visual ! Thank you for posting... I guess we can agree a picture is really worth a 1000 words sometimes !

Very entertaining read in the OP. Definitely got my money's worth.

Really enjoyed reading the OP and the responses. Truly fascinating... both giants and secret languages!

I'll keep watching

Reminds me of the stories from the Inuit. Lots of people aren't aware the the Inuit are actually very new [relatively speaking] to North America, and in fact pushed out the "first inhabitants".

Around 1000 years ago, shortly after the Thule people [Skræling, as the Nords called them] migrated from Siberia into Alaska, the Inuit [descendants of Thule] moved eastward and encountered the "Sivullirmiut", or "The First Inhabitants". They were described as strong giants. The giants, however, were frightened of the Inuit [or easily frightened in general]. The giants mostly fled from the Inuit.

Due to their inability to adapt to new areas, and possibly because of the Medieval Warm Period, they went extinct. There are theories that the Inuit may have received some help from the Dorset, as they spanned the entire continent, Alaska to Greenland, in 300 years or less... which indicates either foreknowledge or assistance.

Anyway, the Norse described the Skræling [Thule/Inuit] as short, so odds are the Giants were of an average height and the Skræling were simply short. If a person from Bolivia [average height of 5'3] met a person from the Dinaric Alps [average height 6'1] for the first time, having only seen their own people for their whole life... they'd think it was a race of giants. A difference of 10 inches on average is pretty significant.

The Olmec miners/stonemasons from Africa were actually giants. I've read that a regular man only came up to there kneecap! This would make them at least 20 feet tall.