Origins of the Red-Haired North American Giants?

I’d like to preface this with the statement that I am not an anthropologist, geneticist, or in any way an ‘expert’ in any of the listed fields, so please excuse any terminology flubs. My purpose in posting is to convey the general idea. I will provide some supporting links, but I have no interest in pointing out every backing source. Some of this is by nature unsubstantiated, and largely my own conjecture. I am placing this in Ancient & Lost Civilizations, although one could probably stretch it to Cryptozoology or such if pushed. Mods, move it if you see fit, or leave it here if not.

Ultimately, like many here, I’ve got an active mind that loves to spitball, and I think I may have a concept worth entertaining.

Or, at very least, an entertaining concept. Please bear with me, I've a lot to say here it seems.

Ancient (Native American) “Indian” legends speak of a race of white skinned giants with red hair, 6 fingers, 2 rows of teeth, and a nasty attitude. According to the stories, there was some coexistence, but invariably these two groups did NOT like each other. These stories are well-chronicled elsewhere, but it is just these that got me thinking. There are other similar ‘giants’ references to be made worldwide for sure, but the people I’m going to discuss are precisely those. The same principles should technically apply to any population under the described conditions.

I personally think there’s something to the stories, as the stories and excavations of the 18~1900’s seem to indicate some correlation. But, could one rationalize how a normal human population could arrive in such an altered physical state?

These folks had to come from somewhere, right? How does one get:
• Gigantism
• Postaxial Polydactyly
• Polydontia
…all in one red-haired population?

First order of business is the polydactyly. “6 fingers”. This is not unheard-of in humans at all. Rather than having two thumbs, the reported morphology is postaxial polydactyly – ‘an extra pinkie’. Google can show you lots of these, ranging from fleshy nubs all the way to fully-functional appendages. A relative of mine actually sports a fully-functional set of these, so perhaps seeing that myself may partially explain my pique of interest to the subject, although the other aspects I find interesting as well.

Postaxial polydactyly is reportedly generated by issues in coding the Limb Reigion 1 (Lmbr1) of DNA. Sonic Hedgehog (Shh), and Sasquatch (Ssq) genes (yeah, our scientists are definitely mature) may be of impact to this process. More or less, the DNA guiding hand and foot development have a slightly different set of ideas on how many fingers is optimal for this form, and decide to code for a little something ‘extra’.

Although the general consensus is that PaP is a recessive gene/trait, it would simply need to have been recessively present in the founder population to become dominantly expressed in the descendant population. Indeed, it may not have even been *expressed* at all in the founding population, but would become so through limited outside genetic input and continued internal mixing over the generations.

In some regions polydactyly is more common though. Usually these are places where a founding member carried the gene for polydactyly and this person passed that on to his or her children. If there aren’t new people coming into the region the polydactyly trait is more common than in other regions. House cats are a good example of this. Ernest Hemmingway owned a polydactyl cat, the descendents of which still live in the Hemmingway museum in Key West, Florida. Since they are descendents from Hemmingway’s original cat and there are few new cats arriving in that region, almost half of the cats have extra toes.

So, this one’s easy. All we need is a founding population with a few different limb design schematics stuffed away in a metaphorical DNA drawer, and limited outside genetic input in successive generations. Check.
Next, we need some more teeth. No problem!

-TBC-

www.sciencedaily.com...

In the current study, Jiang and colleagues generated mice that lacked the oddskipped related-2 (Osr2) gene, which encodes one of many transcription factors that turn genes on or off. "Knocking out" (deleting) the Osr2 gene resulted in cleft palate, a birth defect where the two halves of the roof of the mouth fail to join up properly, leaving a gap. Secondly, and surprisingly, the Osr2 "knockout" mice developed teeth outside of the normal tooth row. Jiang decided to focus his research first on the effect of Osr2 on teeth patterning (vs. cleft palate) because much more was known at the time about teeth development pathways. As the baby's face takes shape in the womb, the development of teeth and palate are tightly controlled in space and time by gene expression. Related abnormalities result in the development of teeth outside of the normal row, missing teeth and cleft palate… Past studies in other labs had shown bone morphogenic protein 4 (BMP4) to be an important factor for the initiation of teeth, and that a protein called Msx1 amplifies the BMP4 tooth-generating signal. Jiang and colleagues suggested for the first time that some unknown factor was restricting the growth of teeth into one row by opposing the Bmp4 signal… diversity in the number of tooth rows across species may be due to evolutionary changes in the control of the BMP4/Msx1 pathway," Jiang said. "In mammals, Osr2 suppresses this pathway to restrict teeth within a single row."

So, very possible. Just need some Osr2 supression factor and Boom! There’s your extra rows of teeth. Google can show you real-world cases of this in present-day humans as well. Looks like the Osr2 is very important for design control of developing tissues.

So…can we have these two conditions simultaneously? It would appear so. Polydactyly and morphological oral abnormalities are often found together. In fact, they are so often found in company that the term “Oral-facial-digital syndrome” has been coined to describe these related (in presentation and origin) conditions.

ghr.nlm.nih.gov...

In short, this condition is pushed on the OFD1 gene. Much the same principles apply, with OFD1 being thought to be rather important in these groupings.

One factor of note to this is that OFDS-affected humans exhibit ‘mental retardation’ (their words, not mine) to various extent. This would seem to correlate with stories of the populations in question being perhaps both not-so-bright, and socially unfriendly in comparison to their contemporaries.

In either of the above events, it is exhibited that genetic abnormalities could potentially bring about a population with the polydactyly, super-dentified, and not-very-social-or-bright characteristics allegedly attributed to this group through “founder effects”.

…but they’d still be normal sized, right?

-TBC-

www.empr.com... rticle/386647/

We all know the story of Mr. Wadlow, and other people who have been affected by acromelagy. However, it would seem that this effect is capable of being reproduced genetically, with less impactive effects. In essence, there is an X mutation that results in expression of the GPR101 gene at roughly 1000x the ‘normal’ rate, causing an unusually robust pituitary, which in turn generates the growth to Wadlow-ish stature (and possibly, beyond?). In the case of acromelagy, there is often a tumor causing a pituitary malf, resulting in the death of the afflicted, but this instance would generate no such life-threatening condition. Just a big, honkin’, active pituitary to drive massive growth.

So…we take a white, red-haired founder population, drop them off in North America, and they never see their former contemporaries again. Like sticks to like, and this may have even occurred during a time period that the area they got dropped in may have simply had no other humans populating it to consider breeding with.

So, this population sets out to explore their new surroundings. They have to stick together, as nobody else is around, or hostile at best. By the numbers I find, this takes somewhere between 40 (at a highly-controlled reproduction) and 160 (assuming ‘normal’ variation in reproduction, whatever that is?). Not a lot of people required for a founding population, by any measure. The more limited the initial set, the greater the founder effect impact ‘downstream’, which seems to fit the hypothesis nicely.

So, we’d be looking at a founder population of somewhere between 50 and a couple of hundred individuals. Whether this was enough to breach the threshold and achieve the “MVP” (Minimal Viable Population) needed for long-term survival of the offspring may be called into question. Genetic stability, certainly so.

-TBC-

a reply to: Q

It is an interesting subject. I am a bit sceptical though.

Are there any remains of these giants? I have read that there is, but is there a reputable scientific archaeological source (actual remains)?

Also, are there any definitive Native American myths among the tribes that are specific about being red haired and being giants?

If you can come up with some reliable sources pertaining to the above then you have a powerful case. Is this possible?

I am more thinking genetic mutation, a bit of scrambled DNA code for the extra appendages and all. There are so many cases of people with genetic mutations of all kinds. Is this just a case of genetics being scrambled? Your argument is that these code anomalies are a throw back to rogue giant DNA from some interbreeding between us humans and the legendary giants of old.

Interesting theory thus far; I look forward to reading more on what your ideas are on both a macro and median viewpoint.

I know a guy that has perfectly formed hands with only four fingers...three fingers and a thumb.
I know a guy with an incomplete second row of teeth and two people with six toes on their feet...one has pointed elf ears.
It may be worth noting that the one with an extra row of teeth is Irish, and the ones with extra toes are smaller than average.
Maybe it's from being born in area with a lot of chemical plants or maybe there is a little bit of wiggle space in human genetics.

Now…suppose that there is an unusually abundant ratio of recessive genes carried in this population. Heck, maybe even just a ‘normal’ volume of recessive genes in a small founder population, or a bit less luck in general for the spousal lottery. Coming from a larger populace initially, these recessive traits would have been of little ill effect to the individuals, being ‘overexpressed’ by the dominant traits. They had no clue what they were carrying (as do most of us still). Bearing in mind that these humans had no concept of genetics, they proceeded to do what we humans do best – get busy!

The first generation would have been more or less ‘normal’. However, within just a couple of generations, everyone’s boinking their (very!) close cousins since there isn’t any other genetic material available and the family trees have intergrown into what may be more aptly described as several shrubs planted on top of one another.

What happens next? The recessive genes start stacking up. No input from outside, so the chance couplings result in more and more recessive traits expressed. Overall group intellect takes a hit. Each generation is a little bit less viable than the last. Many children would die as a result of the declining genetic robustness, but the ones that lived would pass on whatever they had that enabled them to keep going until reproductive age.

Say the common recessive alleles in the founder population favor polydactyly, polydentition, and giantism. The polydactyly isn’t a handicap at all…the extra finger may have even benefitted them in manual tasks (See the amazing ‘Six fingered Phil’ - Flint Knapper Extraordinaire!). Polydentia- no problem either. More food pulverization per chew may make for a faster eater, or one whose food is a bit more prepped for digestion. Gigantism- also a plus in the Neolithic North American environment. “Nobody wrestles a giant sloth like Thar over there, man he’s huge! I bet he gets all the chicks.” And so Thar, and all of his ilk, get an edge in breeding, perpetuating the bigness.

And so, they eventually make a somewhat stable (if rather small) subpopulation with the traits of polydactyly, polydentition, and an overall bigness. Unfortunately, their differing morphology, along with their accompanying mental state changes made them not-so-cool people to live near once the ‘Native Americans’ started showing up from Berengia. Bad neighbors, and NOT someone you want your young Native American daughter bringing home, for sure.

There could be some speculation that interbreeding with outsiders became not only very improbable due to cultural differences, but physically very unlikely due to size differentials. Imagine a St. Bernard trying to get with a Chihuahua…even with AI (which they didn’t have), the size of the offspring would kill any would-be mother from the smaller population (if she lived through the intercourse itself), and breeding in the other direction…well…let’s just say that vacuum wand may need an extension to reach that particular crevice, in the incredibly unlikely situation that were to occur.

The reports of ravenous appetites? Think about it. You’ve got an 8 foot frame, and somewhere around ~500+ pounds of Homo Sapien unspecific to maintain. Even at rest, you’re going to need thousands of calories more than your smaller counterparts just to keep going. Where did all that big game in North America go, anyway? We/they ATE them, just like we did to the Mammoths of Eurasia and any other comparable food source our young species encountered.

These aren’t today’s pansy-people either; their bones would have been like rocks compared to ours, with musculature to match. (Their contemporaries would have had this also, but at roughly half the scale!) Even at ‘normal’ size these would have been some pretty intimidating folk, but put them 2x as big as everyone else and they’d be pretty fear-inspiring IMO. Reports from the Native Americans seem to reflect exactly this.

Even if they *tried* to live with the new neighbors, things could go south fast. The area will only provide so much food…even when the NA's tried to placate them with offerings (notably similar to middle eastern giant tales), that only put off the conflict. Eventually food runs out, and it’s wartime. (Again, notably similar.)

As reported, this was not good news for the NA’s. Even a few of these brutes in concert could do a real number on your village. Still, they would be very hated, and any chance the NA’s could use to team up on them would be looked upon as a good thing. “What? You got together with the men from the other 3 villages and killed those 3 big #@#$% that ate all our buffalo last month? High five!”

And so, I suppose, there it is. But wait…

Where would this founder population come from? Well, the stories all seem pretty intent on white skin and red hair. Generally speaking, we’re looking at a Eurasian source, and/or potential Neanderthal admixture. Not a lot of red headed white folk endemic to anywhere else. One might speculate that this could have been a combination of ice travel, water travel along the ice, island hopping, and/or general blind luck of the founder population in their migration from East to West until they hit the mainland and started in earnest. Surely it’s possible that a couple of hundred people could take off for parts unknown in those days without anyone being the wiser. How much would a couple of villages worth of people who just ‘went away’ never to return really stick in the minds of those left behind? I think they’d have considered them pretty unimportant, and forgotten their existence completely within a generation or so.

All of this is speculation, of course. If someone could just go dig up one of these guys from the Smithsonian vaults and get a DNA test to see if any of this is legit, that’s be swell.

Of course, you’ll have to get them to admit that they exist first….

Thank you to all who have read my exhaustive spiel. If nothing else, I hope it may have been an entertaining or thought-provoking read. My first thread in years, so please don't be too harsh. I'm not stating this as anything more than conjecture on the potential origins of a people who may or may not have even existed, but it seems to me a plausible thing in light of the findings and general suppsition.

The remains are dubious. Many 'archaeologists' (and I do use that term loosely, think 'treasure hunter' maybe more apt) in the 1800's and early 1900's document finding oversized skeletons under mounds and other burial sites all over the US.

There is a conspiracy theory something along the lines that many of these were handed over to the Smithsonian, who promptly "lost" them, due to their not fitting in with the thinking of the time. Lots of newspaper articles from the day.

Both can be researched in-depth right here on ATS, as well as outside sources.

Perhaps the most prominent of tales comes from the Paiute (it's just wiki...)

en.wikipedia.org...

Again, not saying any of this is fact at all, just supposition based upon scanty info and legend.

You can also look at simple psychology to explain some of this.

"Giant' is a relative term. The Vikings were 'Giants' to the original English folk.

So you could just be looking at a small population of Vikings who made it to North America.

As for the other traits, you just need to think of exaggeration. So a couple of siblings had two rows of teeth or an extra digit. Perhaps they were the two killed in a battle and left there. So the idea is born and instead of these two had this trait, suddenly, the whole Viking settlement was said to be this and that.

You only have to look around today to see this at work. Even with all of our education, still people have strange ideas about people from (Insert name of country or religion or sexual preference here)

In those days there was no education and people were very superstitious.

It is not hard to imagine.

P

originally posted by: pheonix358
You can also look at simple psychology to explain some of this.

"Giant' is a relative term. The Vikings were 'Giants' to the original English folk.

So you could just be looking at a small population of Vikings who made it to North America.


P

There have been mummified remains found in China and Egypt of red-haired guys between 6 and 7 foot tall.
These guys would have seemed like giants to the locals at the time.
Some of them were wearing textiles that most closely resembled weave patterns from ancient Scotland and Ireland.

What about the O neg. blood factor of 7% of the population. That are red haired, blue green or gray eyed and have higher intelligence in comparison to all other blood types. reply to: Q

a reply to: pheonix358

Absolutely, Phoenix. Could have been as simple as a couple of errant Viking longboats, to begin with.

Let them inbreed for a couple of hundred years, and presto! You could potentially have all of the alleged characteristics reported in the stories present within the alleged population, along with a plausible source of origin and means of development to that described state ("founder effect" and recessive alleles).

Not saying it happened...just saying there seems to be a chain of events that would arrive at the destination. Checks all the boxes.

There is certainly no shortage of Chinese Whispers in relation, to be sure.

I just did a quick Google of "red-haired mummies."
Here's the Wiki on the Cherchen Man. He was 6' 6''.
That was pretty tall in that neck of the woods back then.
en.wikipedia.org...
There seems to be a lot of good evidence of sea-faring Northern Europeans all over the world a lot longer than most want to give them credit for.
There are also Egyptian mummies found buried with tobacco and coca, which would imply there were trade routes that also involved what we now call South America long before official history would have us believe.

It is also argued that O neg. could have not come about naturally only by genetic manipulation. a reply to: Michaelfunction

a reply to: skunkape23

In the story of David and Goliath didn't the israelites refer to themselves as "ants" in comparison to men like Goliath?
Although certainly not a biblical fan that part of the world speaks of giants in the past.

Blavatsky also refers to a third round of people living on the earth whom were red which is interesting as this colour hair pops up in the most far flung parts of the world. However, the descriptive term the 'Red Indian' to me is not exactly a person with red hair or red skin.

I remember seeing a documentary about South America where driving along the commentator filmed dead bodies coming out of the sandy soil with quite shocking bright red hair.

I am intrigued about the different types of faces of humanity we have on the earth especially considering (if its still true) we all seem to have originated from one female).

I am still getting my head around what I see as a weird problem concerning how many thousands of years we have actually lived on this planet. We don't even know 1/10 of our historical record - our origins as to whether we started all over the world or came out of Africa. When you look at that time line so much is possible with our brains and did we suddenly came into building, farming etc etc at the most recent 10,000 years of our at least 100,000 year time here?
The possibilities are endless.

a reply to: Shiloh7
I've got Irish and Chocktaw blood. I have reddish blonde hair and a ruddy cast to my skin.
I'm not a giant...about an even 6 foot. Lanky build.
I am interested in the history of these people whose tale seems to be as yet unrevealed in formal history.

I had read that the red hair on the bodies was actually black hair that changed color over the years or when exposed to the air after being buried.

The early North American mound builders may have bred giants for combat as super warriors and were then buried in mounds as a show of respect for their status. These giants were driven off or killed off by the smaller and more numerous normal sized natives. They have myths about these prairie people and the war that was against them.

Im not debating the authenticity of Edgar Cayce, but a couple of his readings talk about the original inhabitants of the Northwest, that I thought is interesting:

Reading 620-1: Before this we find the entity was during those periods when there were the settlings in the land that is now known as the Northwest, when there were the enterings into this land of those peoples from across what is now known as Alaska or Bering Straits; those individuals that journeyed into the lands now known as the Columbia River section. The entity then was among those whom the strangers from the East met with; that were not the native Indians nor those from across the sea, but the remnants of those people who were of the tribes that were lost or that had journeyed to the land, that had settled in the Aleutian Islands; that were of the Caucasian or white race that settled in the valley, with which Clark came in contact or found there." The Columbia River is in Oregon, and again Cayce is talking about the lost tribes of Israel.

In reading 630-2 he mentions that survivors of Lemuria settled in Oregon, and that "there still may be seen something of the worship as set up, as the totem or the family tree."

If you believe Cayce then it seems to me that there is a possibility that the survivors of a very ancient race, (Lemuria), a lost tribe of Israel, and those that came across the Bering Straits intermarried. If pockets of tribes remained isolated, it could have caused some of their offspring to "evolve" differently from their cousins. Also, there are several legends and stories about Native Women being abducted and impregnated by the Sasquatch. So, maybe this Red Haired species of giants, was from mixing with Sasquatch genetics.

I found an area in S. Oregon that I think fits his description of this worship center or family totem. You can see the geoglyphs here: www.americangeoglyphs.com

Anyway, that is my 2 cents on the origins of these red haired "giants".

Also, I have a daughter-in-law that is O RH Negative and that poor little thing, is as dumb as a rock. If there is an Alien connection to the O Rh negative people, then they ate her brain, thats all I have to say about that.

Well, you're not the first person with this theory
but you did a good job with some genetic flow factors, the whole isolated population and such. While there's not really any evidence that any of it is true (as you noted), I think you argued it well.

The people who called them vikings... come on, cannibal mutants who were mentally retarded able to cross the ocean, when even the Norsemen had trouble getting to Greenland, let alone Vinland? Not to mention the Norsemen are blonde, the red haired influx into europe came from the Germanic invasions. Hence why the foreign Aesir gods are red-haired whereas the native Vanir are blonde...

On top of all this, interment causes pigment to leech into hair, turns it red. Stuff isnt the colour it looks when you dig it up, it has to be tested.

And the mention of Blavatsky? Cmon, do you really believe this sh##?

originally posted by: misskat1
Also, I have a daughter-in-law that is O RH Negative and that poor little thing, is as dumb as a rock. If there is an Alien connection to the O Rh negative people, then they ate her brain, thats all I have to say about that.

I chuckled