"The
myths of the great ape are irresistibly seductive for some scientists.
The most basic tenet of science is that one may give credence only to
what can be proved. Despite this, some fully accredited and otherwise
reputable scholars not only believe in the existence of animals that have
never been captured or killed, they also think they know their taxonomic
identity." (Other Origins )
INTRODUCTION
The popular model for Bigfoot is Gigantopithecus, an Asian ape that didn't
become extinct, but lives on in remote areas as Bigfoot, the Yeti, or
the Alma (plus many other local names). Gigantopithecus, possibly an overspecialized
bamboo eater, is thought by Ciochon to have become extinct. It is a possibility
that the giant ape was hunted to extinction by Homo erectus. The teeth
of both have been found in the same cave together five times, most notably
in Vietnam and China (Tattersall, proving only that the two coexisted
in the same time frame). The idea that a New World ape is the correct
model for Bigfoot or Sasquatch is supported by many of the scientists
that have ventured into the study of Bigfoot: the late Dr. Grover Krantz,
Dr. Jeffery Meldrum, Dr. John Bindernagel, Dr. William Saxe Wihr, et al.
The idea of Gigantopithecus as a Bigfoot model was mentioned by Napier,
and he further mentioned the Gigantopithecus model ideas of Bernard Heuvelmans
and Ivan Sanderson in his 1972 book.
As far as an Early Man Bigfoot model, the earliest I have (not to mention
Linnaeus, who recognized that there were two human types: Civilized Man,
Homo sapiens, and Wildman, Homo troglodytes) come across in my records,
concerns the Russian Professor V. Khahlov, who in 1914 collected Asian
Wildman data and considered him as a relict Sinanthropus pekinensis (H.
erectus). Shackley recognized and examined Boris Porshnev's firm belief
that neandertal man
survived in Asia, and examined the claims in her book. This belief is
carried forward today with the thinking of Dmitri Bayanov, writing also
in this volume. Looking at the problem from a different angle, I have
taken up the banner that Bigfoot might well be an Early Man, specifically
Homo erectus, or, Homo neanderthalensis, the latter being a punctuational
evolutionary variety of the former (by way of Homo heidelbergensis). The
large ape, Gigantopithecus, I believe actually
became quite extinct, leaving in my mind, the question of a Bigfoot model
still open. Shackley notes, "these facial features-the heavy brow
ridges, the large jaws - closely resemble descriptions of Almas,"
which she considers might be surviving Neanderthals. Porshnev's thesis
(in Shackley), was that a known hominid species - neandertal man, had
actually survived, and could be observed in the myths and legends of ancient
Greece and Rome.
Approaching the question first in a philosophical manner, one can consider
the question of what is man? And what is ape? One of the more recent findings
of DNA studies is that, "we share a common ancestor with the chimpanzee,
which remains our closest zoological cousin sharing 97 percent of our
genetic makeup. This is a closer genetic relationship than exists between
dogs and wolves," Burger. Then, where would Bigfoot fit? Seemingly
somewhere between...but as the Naked Ape of Desmond Morris? Or as Jared
Diamond has suggested, combining the chimpanzee into the genus Homo? With
that in mind, if we consider Bigfoot an ape or an animal is really moot,
as it depends on how we define human...apes may do many of the things
humans do, but just not as well.
The
Fortune Cookie
"We do not see things the way they are; we see them the way we are."
THE CULTURE
Correspondence with the late Dr. Grover Krantz indicates major problems
with my Early Man model for Bigfoot. Mostly in the cultural sense...they
(H. erectus) had fire (Oosterzee, 2000, pp 85; The earliest fire is at
1.6 million year ago.); and tools; H. erectus with the heavy choppers
or hand axes, known as the Acheulian tool kit (Pfeiffer, 1972, pp 146;
lasted from 1.6 million to 75,000 years ago); and neandertal types had
a Mousterian kit, somewhat improved in technology (stone
was deliberately knapped to form toothed pieces, scrapers, etc). Neandertal
also possibly did some trading with Cro-Magnon, and ), took care of the
aged and buried the dead (Neandertal: Care For The Injured:
http://sapphire.indstate.edu/~ramanank/care.html ) at Shanidar
Cave in the Zagros Mountains of Iraq. According to Ralph Solecki, the
archaeologist who headed the Shanidar project, this individual, who lived
to be around the age of forty, was blind in his left eye, suffered from
arthritis, and his atrophied right arm had been amputated. This neandertal,
"could barely forage and fend for himself, and we must assume that
he was accepted and supported by his people up to the day he died"
(Solecki 1971:196). Otherwise, he would not have been able to endure for
so long the heavy rigors of neandertal life.), and built houses of mammoth
bones (Neandertal Architecture: http://www.sciam.com/0997issue/0997scicit4.html
). In short, Homo neanderthalensis was a man...just not a Homo sapiens.
Besides fire and cultural artifacts, there were other questions? Why,
if Bigfoot is a man, is he hairy? Where are the bones? Is he intelligent?
Why is he so tall? Looking first at the question of fire. It is my contention,
that as Early Modern Man invaded Europe and Asia around 50,000+ years
ago, one of their options was to
replace the existing competition...H. erectus and H. neanderthalensis.
These, to Homo sapiens, hairy (delved into later) brutes, were hunted
and killed to the point of near extinction. There was no cross breeding
with them, they were monsters. With fire, there is a smoke trail and a
smoke odor. Clear evidence to Modern Man that there is a possible neandertal
camp nearby, and targets to kill.
Within a couple of generations, the making and use of fire by the survivors
was lost. Survivors were relegated to more remote areas. Even then, Stringer,
1993, notes that, "Middle Paleolithic people it seems had fire but
they did not build elaborate hearths. The most complex hearths consisted
of small scoops in the cave floor," implying that perhaps they were
not as fond of fire as later Cro-Magnon types were. But, even to this
day... Bigfoot has a curiosity about small flames. This same scenario
is true also with tool making, where the clack of stone on stone can be
heard for a long distance. It would be an invitation for men to investigate
the source of the noise. Again, in short time, this cultural aspect would
be forgotten. It also could be true that a certain member of a Bigfoot
group was assigned the task of tool-making, as was done in the Jean Auel
novel, "Clan of the Cave Bear." Here again, the death of this
individual and others he might be training, would quickly leave the group
at a cultural loss. As today, even a chimpanzee could be trained to
flake stones, and use the sharp stone to cut a rope to get food, one wonders
about the
supposed intelligence of Bigfoot.
But can a society lose cultural achievements. It is said of the Philippine
Tasaday, that when they escaped into the jungle a couple of hundred years
ago, that they left behind much of their technology, using few stone tools,
little agriculture, and living in caves (Nance). The early Tasmanians
also, left the mainland, and for some reason, abandoned fishing, and the
art was lost from their society. Isolation was the answer according to
Jared Diamond, "Tasmania was occupied by 4,000 hunter/gatherers related
to mainland Australians, but with the simplest technology
of any recent people on Earth. Unlike mainland Aboriginal Australians,
Tasmanians couldn't start a fire; they had no boomerangs, spear throwers,
or shields; they had no bone tools, no specialized stone tools, and no
compound tools like an axe head mounted on a handle; they couldn't cut
down a tree or hollow out a canoe; they lacked sewing to make sewn clothing,
despite Tasmania's cold winter climate with snow; and, incredibly, though
they lived mostly on the sea coast, the Tasmanians didn't catch or eat
fish. How did those enormous gaps in Tasmanian material culture
arise?
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/diamond/diamond_p5.html Perhaps
the same could have happened to relic neandertal and H. erectus.
THE SIZE OF BIGFOOT
"Homo erectus was the first really big hominid...tall, thin and barrel-chested,
it was adapted to long distance ranging on the African savannas. In stature,
no early hominid before us came close to the aptly named H. erectus, who
was tall, even compared to us. The six African specimens complete enough
to allow estimates of their weight and stature fall within the top 17%
of modern human males. Comparison of fossil evidence from Africa with
younger fossils from China, the famous Peking Man site, indicated that
once H. erectus got big, he stayed big, varying minimally in body size
over its million year species lifespan," Johanson, 1994.
The Lake Turkana Boy, 1.6 million years old, Alan Walker called, "The
Strapping youth," because of his size. "The permanent molars
had started to come through, the first and second all ready in place,
the third yet to appear. "This told us that the individual had died
about the age of eleven or twelve," Leakey, 1992. "Making allowances
for the fact that the soft ends of the bones had been lost, we came up
with a figure of between five feet, four inches and five feet eight, and
he would
have grown up to be well over six feet...It is surely no coincidence that
the two Homo erectus individuals whose height we can estimate were both
tall. This gives us confidence to say that, unexpectedly, we were dealing
with an exceptionally tall species."
Anthropologist Holly Smith, at the University of Michigan, a specialist
on fossil hominid teeth, said that based on the teeth the eleven year
old boy still had 23% of his growth yet, which would make him as an adult
about six feet four inches. But Leakey goes on, modern humans, in which
the first molar eruption takes place at 5.9 years...Homo erectus at 4.6
years, and the australopithecine's, a little over three years. Holly notes
that erectus was in an intermediate position, and calculates
that the Turkana boy actually died when he was nine years old, not 11
as the human
pattern would be (Leakey 1992).
In another case, a Science News (vol. 1450 tells of a 500,000 year old
shin bone found at a quarry in southern England in May 1995. Based on
the shin bones dimensions, it is estimated that the male stood about 6
feet tall, and weighed about 176 pounds.
"Though Homo erectus would likely have been as tall as we are and
would have walked in a bipedal fashion nearly identical to ours, our ancestors
would have looked quite different in the upper torso region. Analysis
of the 'Strapping Youth' - Turkana Boy, shows he had a conical thorax,
with narrow shoulders and a rib cage tapering outward, like that seen
in Australopithecus and modern African apes, rather than the barrel-shaped
chest of modern man," Ciochon.
This sounds very much like the male Bigfoot often described. A recent
report from Oregon described the Bigfoot as, "She nearly hit it,
missing by two feet. It was dark and overcast when the creature crossed
swiftly, swinging its arms. It had broad shoulders, skinny waist, and
was completely covered in dark brown hair, and had a rounded, dome shaped
head.
Other reports sound more like the neandertal, shorter and stockier, with
a flatter head, and not noted as being skinny. And, it should be kept
in mind, the head of "classic" western 5' 6" Neanderthals
was distinctive, with heavy brow ridges, barrel chest, heavily muscled
frame, and a long low-vaulted skull (brain size average 1450 cc, compared
to modern 1300-1600 cc) with receding chin and prominent jaw, common in
France and Germany, while the neandertal stock more to the east had modified
traits, without such heavy features, and were known for awhile as
"archaic" types. Shackley says that Marcellin Boule made a figure
with ape-like traits, assembling the skeleton so it was pitched forward
and appeared to be a hunchback, "shambling along on bent knees..."
Perhaps he was right though, as the 40-50 year old had chronic arthritis
of the jaw, legs and spine. Also, it sounds like the description of Bigfoot,
walking hunched over.
The H. erectus description could account for the apparent lack of a neck...the
muscles in the upper arm and shoulders, trapezoid, are so immense, that
it prevents easy motion of the head, and the creature must turn its whole
body to view a particular area. This was suggested at the 1995 Harrison
Hot Springs Sasquatch Forum by bodybuilder John Miles. John said that
muscles develop where they are being used, and the Sasquatch must do a
lot of stooping, squatting, and lifting using the lower lumbar muscles.
"Its trapezium muscles are so great that they form a
great angle and meet the shoulder, making it look like there is no neck,"
(Track Record #47).
Jumping from the Turkana boy to the seven-foot three-inch (size determined
from photographs by Peter Byrne) Patterson creature, is not as big a jump
as one would think. National Geographic (Sept. 1979), "Search For
The First Americans" says that, "Animals grow oversize, stamped
with the giantism typical of cold climates, paleontologists know them
as Ice Age megafauna." It took a big and strong creature to kill
one of the Ice Age giants by throwing rocks at them, even if they
were mired in mud or a bog. So, it is not out of line to look at evolution,
from two million years ago, favoring a larger and stronger species (unless
they drove game over cliffs).
How much does Bigfoot weigh? (Track Record #75, March 1998) In the last
couple of months since North American Science Institute (NASI) announced
last November 1997, that Patty weighed almost 2000 pounds, there has been
a lot of speculation on the weight of Patty. Green estimated 800#, Grover
Krantz 500#, Patterson himself said between 300-800#. Historically, the
Chapman creature of Ruby Creek was an estimated 800-1000#, Roe's 7' female
at 500#, and Beck thought his 8 footer was between 800 and 900#, while
Ostman's "old lady" at over 7 feet was between
500-600#. Dr. Grover Krantz used the footprint of a 6'-190# man's heel
prints to estimate that a similar but wider Bigfoot track should weigh
in at about 757#.
I read in three different books about dinosaurs, that the approximate
weight of a dinosaur can be determined by measuring the displacement of
water by using a scale model (this is also how they determine the weight
of ships). I thought I'd apply the procedure here and see what I came
up with...but do keep in mind, I'm only looking for a ballpark figure
which might be off considerably. The exercise is only to determine which
general range of weights should be considered for a Bigfoot creature.
Larry Lund took one of the models that I sell and trimmed off all of the
base, leaving only the supposed creature. The exercise is not to determine
specific gravity, only the water displacement, the assumption being that
flesh, bone, guts, etc., weighs about the same as an equal amount of water...a
skinny model will displace less water than a fat model. I then took the
model to International Bigfoot Society member Woody Woodworth's laboratory
and measured the displacement three times. All measurements came out with
the same displacement, 134 ml.
My figures then: the model is 5.8" tall; Patty is 87.5" tall;
with a ratio of 1:15.086. I cubed this figure to determine how many models
would fit in Patty, and came out with 3,433.38. Thus displacement of my
model was 134 ml X 3433.38 divide by a thousand to convert to liters=
460.07 liters. A liter is 1.0567 quarts, total then of 486.15 quarts,
a quart being about 2 pounds in weight. This gives a final figure of 972.3
pounds for a full size figure of my model. About in the range of the
guesses by other observers, but only half of that predicted by NASI. We
suspect that a bad figure for circumference had been used.
Are there other major differences between Early Man and Bigfoot? Several
I'm sure (the large breasts of females of both species is considered a
similarity). One such is the supposed sagittal ridge of the Patterson
female. Muscles are attached to this ridge for chewing in the male gorilla.
It's not entirely clear yet if Bigfoot does have a ridge, but assuming
it does, and similarity is noted in the Java Man reconstruction by Weidenreich,
a robust male with a pointed crown. Even the Peking Woman reconstructed
by him is represented with a pointed crown. Not unusual though, as the
late Bigfooter, Dr. Carlton Coon of Univ. of Penn., noted that H. erectus
from China seemed to share some features with modern Mongoloids. One of
these was a bony ridge down the middle of the skull found in the North
Chinese. "As for the caveman from Java, he'd had a skull ridge (or
sagittal keeling) that appeared to have been handed down to modern Australians
and Tasmanians."
As other Bigfooters have noted in the past, the large breasts described
from the females are an indication of a human trait, other ape females,
though often noted with breasts, do not compare with those of the Bigfoot
females, which are similar to those of human females, often described
as large and floppy.
WHERE ARE THE BONES?
If Bigfoot is Homo erectus or H. neanderthalensis, then the best place
to find a bone is, of course, in a museum. But bones here in North America?
First you would have to explain how H. erectus or H. neanderthalensis
arrived in the New World. I'll come back to that in a bit.
Now, the bones. "Critters ate 'em," is the stock answer, but
how many people stumble over an elk or horse bone in the wild without
really thinking about it? And it might be a Bigfoot bone...how would you
know? The September 1979 "National Geographic -The First Americans,"
had a quip about Dr. Alan L. Bryan, University of Alberta, visiting Brazil
and photographing a portion of a skull of a beetle-browed hominid, "he
believes to be a few rungs down the evolutionary ladder." I wrote
Dr. Bryan and received permission to reprint his photos of the calotte
(top of skull). He says, "I think there is little question that the
calotte is a transitional (i.e. early or archaic) Homo sapiens, somewhat
like neandertal or Rhodesian Man, but more closely related to a North
Chinese skull (Jinniushan) guesstimated to be less than 200,000 years
old." Dr. Bryan kindly enclosed his article (besides a copy of the
Jinniushan article) from Current Anthropology, June 1984.
"A Fossilized Calotte with Prominent Brow ridges from Lagoa Santa,
Brazil," Could this fossil represent the culmination of evolution
of an early H. erectus who's ancestors had entered the New World? I'd
like to call it a possible fossil Bigfoot calotte.
There are other reports. Besides the previous Brazil specimen, Carter
describes other New World skulls, "The descriptions of the skulls
that appear to be from early situations are startlingly similar, they
are all described as beetling-browed, longheaded, slab-sided, pentagonal
or roof-shaped skulls." "The Univ. of Nebraska excavated a skull
fragment in Cedar County, Nebraska, that was unusual enough that they
took special care with it and asked Hrdlicka to look it over since it
was a 'low type skull,' meaning a relatively primitive skull...In Hrdicka's
words, it is 'intermediate between that of a modern male and the neandertalers,"
Carter. (Hrdlicka, in the 1930's at the Smithsonian Inst., was a tough-minded
disbeliever in the repeated and flimsy claims for early humans in the
Americas, Trinkaus.) So, there are other interesting archaic bones in
the Americas. R. Protsch had a catalog describing many. A favorite of
mine is Early Man in Oregon, showing two
separate beetle-brows from the ancient Warner Valley, with collections
of lithic artifacts.
DNA
As technology improves, even fossil bones are occasionally found to contain
DNA traces. Several published cases of DNA isolations from ancient teeth
and bones exist (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, #81, 1990.
"Human DNA recovery from Ancient Bone," S. Williams, et al).
Perhaps it will be that these bones will show mitochondrial DNA that's
vastly different from that of modern man and erectus.
To date, there has been one analysis of DNA from the Yeti, and three from
neandertal types. Have tried to get specialists interested in comparing
the two types, but have not been successful so far. The Yeti type (LA
Times, 2/4/2001) was recovered from Bhutan hair, and studied by Bryan
Sykes at Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine. He said, "we found
some DNA in it, but we don't know what it is. It's not a human, not a
bear, nor anything else we have so far been able to identify...we have
never encountered DNA that we couldn't recognize before." The first
mitochondrial DNA of a 40 to 100,000 year old neandertal came from bone
fragments from the first described neandertal, found in 1856, from Feldhufer
Cave, Neander Tal Gorge, in Germany. The study by Matthias Krings, et
al, was published in July 11, 1997, vol. 90 issue of Cell. (Neandertal
DNA Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans). There was a lot of controversy,
and demands for more tests. The problem was that the tests indicated that
there was no mixing of genes between the specimen and modern man, many
anthropologists believing that the neandertal was a direct ancestor in
our family tree. I of course, believe they were Wild Men, or Bigfoot.
The second mtDNA neandertal sequence came from Mezmaiskaya Cave, in Russia
near the Black Sea. Samples were taken from the rib of an infant that
died about 29,195 years ago. There was an examination of 345 base pairs
of mtDNA by Igor Ovchinnikov, et al, and published in the Mar 30, 2000
issue of Nature. Again there was no mixing of DNA between the neandertal
and modern men.
It was noted that
the last common ancestor of the two, was about 500,000 years ago, supporting
the theory that Early Man originated in Africa. In the comparisons, it
was also noted that there were an average of only 9 mutations between
samples of Modern Man, that is from Pygmy, European, Aborigine, etc.,
when compared. While the difference in variations between neandertal and
Homo sapiens was around 27 substitutions. Clearly a whole different species.
And most recently, neandertal remains in Vindija Cave, Croatia, from about
34 miles north of the capital of Zagreb, were found to be 42,000 years
old. Again mtDNA was found to not match human DNA sequences. Of interest,
is that this cave was inhabited until 28,000 years ago. So far the youngest
neandertal remains "appear" to be from Portugal, of about 24,500
years ago. (Krings, et al, Nature Genetics, 26, 2000, "A view of
Neandertal Genetic Diversity."
HAIR.
"First following Darwin, Dubois (H. erectus discovery in Java) believed
that humans had lost the apelike fur they surely once had," Trinkaus.
One of the main differences between man and Bigfoot is that...he is hairy.
Many modern scientists believe in the theory of neoteny, that is, humans
are born and live out their lives in a biologically primitive state. This
is so that the human female is able to pass the head of the newborn, undeveloped,
baby at such a large size, the child coming to brain
and skull maturity in infancy... and even then, there were once a large
number of fatalities.
Elaine Morgan states, "The problem about hairlessness was why one
Savannah primate needed to go naked while all other species in the same
habitat retained their fur... Neoteny is the concept that humans are a
juvenilized form of ape. They are said to be characterized by a general
retardation of the pace of development, so that they mature more slowly
than the other primates and live longer, and this involves retaining some
characteristics of a juvenile or fetal ape into adult life...hairlessness
is characteristic of a fetal ape...The fetalization theory was first proposed
by the
Dutch anatomist Louis Bold in the 1920's, and revived in the 1970's by
Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard (Ontogeny and Phylogeny, 1977).
Trinkaus says, of the Krapnia and Tabun Neanderthals, "...segments
of the bone known as the pubic rami, were unusually long...the logical
deduction was that neandertal pelvis of both genders were broader side
to side than human pelvis. For female Neanderthals, this would provide
a very wide birth canal indeed...this anatomical fact might reflect an
important reproductive difference between Neanderthals and modern humans...give
birth to an infant after only nine months, instead of twelve (when the
brain has matured)...enables humans to have exceptionally large-brained
offspring while maintaining a pelvis that is narrow enough...Neanderthals
had not yet evolved this evolutionary solution to the big-brained baby
problem...give birth to a baby with a head 15-25% bigger than that of
modern...kept their babies in the womb for the full eleven to twelve months,
as their brain size would predict."
Thus, Neanderthals and H. erectus never had an evolutionary reason to
lose their pelts, which probably served them well throughout the cold
Ice Ages. As a bit of negative information, it might be noted that the
tool kits of both species, neandertal and H. erectus, did not contain
needles (there were awls though), those being found only in later modern
man contexts. HOW
DID NEANDERTAL AND ERECTUS GET TO AMERICA? Apparently, the most prevalent
idea, is that H. erectus migrated out of Africa around 2,000,000 years
ago, into Europe and Asia. From there, following the animal herds, groups
crossed the Bering Strait, then above water, into the New World. There
is controversy, of course (on almost everything to do with anthropology),
many thinking modern man arose in different locales...so would have all
ready been there.
In Europe Stringer, 1997, notes, "A thick and chinless lower jaw
found at the Mauer sand quarry near Heidelberg, Germany, in 1997, is believed
to be about 500,000 years old...here the archaic sapiens forms are regarded
as representing two distinct species: H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis."
Or, the Medieval Wild Man...Bigfoot. While in Asia, H. erectus quickly
spread to Australia and China.
Then, some 50,000 years ago or earlier, Modern Man, Homo sapiens, appeared
on the scene, evolving in Africa from H. erectus stock about 200,000 years
ago. They also moved out of Africa, and into Europe and Asia, and eventually
North America, and they replaced the native inhabitants almost to the
point of extinction...even the Gigantopithecus ape. Bigfoot had to survive
in the more remote areas, and survive he did...as the Alma, Sasquatch,
Bigfoot or Skunk Ape.
The Bering Strait disappeared during the Ice Ages - sea levels dropping
some 300 or more feet, creating a continuation of Siberia into present
Alaska, known as Beringia. The bridge would open and close at long intervals,
depending on the water used to make Ice Age glaciers. The bridge was open,
centering on the years before present: 15,000, 25,000, 55,000, 65,000...any
of which times Early Man could have crossed on dry land. All and more
of these periods had an exchange of fauna between Asia and Alaska, or
the reverse. During these times, because of the warm
currents, the area enjoyed a relatively mild climate whenever land bridges
blocked off the arctic waters...similar to modern Sitka, with extensive
spruce forests (Carter, 1980). On occasion, fishing trawlers over the
drowned shelves would often bring up the ancient bones of the once grasslands
grazing mastodons. As there was little moisture falling in this part of
the Arctic, the broad grasslands became a highway for mammoth, mastodon,
bison, muskoxen, deer, and the animals that preyed on them...lions, saber-toothed
tigers, short-faced bears, dire wolves, cheetahs, (National Geographic,
Sept 1979) and possibly Early Man and Homo erectus. Another idea, is that
the Bigfoot type creatures could have swam across the Bering Straits in
more warmer climates. The distance to the Diomede Islands is about 25
miles from Asia, and another 25 miles to Alaska. There is one report of
an exhausted Chuchunaa found on the shore of Siberia in Bering Strait
waters. Another clue comes from the appearance of Sasquatch on the Queen
Charlotte
Islands off British Columbia...40 miles from shore.
ARE THEY DANGEROUS
TO HUMANS?
To the readers of the Track Record, I suggest that if they come upon one
of these creatures, they treat it like any other wild animal. Back off.
The missing persons files are full of outdoorsman that have disappeared
in the forest. Usually said to have fallen in a hole, attacked by a bear,
or some such. Green in Halpin notes, "It is not uncommon, however,
for humans to disappear in wild areas and never be found, so one might
bear in mind the possibility that a lone human attacked by a Sasquatch
might not be able to return to tell the story."
How about the records of Neanderthals or Homo erectus? Except among their,
own clan they appear to be cannibals. Trinkhaus writes about neandertal
at Krapina, Croatia. "...concerns cannibalism: that dreaded, bestial
practice with which Neanderthals had been associated before...many different
skeletons, were consistently broken up, disarticulated, and scattered
through the deposits...every one of the large bones that would have contained
edible marrow was splintered. "The neandertal man whose skull was
found at Monte Circeo (Italy) showed an
ancient, unhealed fracture to the right temple: evidence of the prehistoric
murder of an individual struck down from behind...skull broken open and
the brain extracted for a ritual cannibal feast." And, many would
speak of all possible cannibalism as ritual, or some such, in an effort
to make the species appear "better."
"Peking man, living many thousands of years earlier and in another
part of the world, is discovered to have mutilated the skull at the base
in a similar fashion....Franz Weidenreich in 1939.. too many Sinanthropus
heads for the number of limb bones...Why was the face broken away on each
and the foramen magnum enlarged...yes Peking Man was a savage too."
And finally in this same vein, Hulse says, "the Solo population,
which lived in Java sometime during the Wurm glaciation, is known to us
from eleven crania and two tibiae. No faces or jaws were found, and the
skulls had been cracked open at the base: it is suspected that they were
victims of foul play and perhaps of a cannibal feast...in Java. One of
the pithecanthropus skulls shows many signs of having been caved in by
the blows of some heavy implement. A number of the bones were broken and
dislocated, but the fact that the fragments are in contact with each other
indicates that the skull was broken before the skin and flesh of the scalp
had decayed.
CONCLUSION
Although much of what I have said is highly debatable by many, I hope
it has at least brought to readers minds the possibility that our Bigfoot
model isn't necessarily that of a Gigantopithecus or another ape, but
could possibly be an Early Man model. Especially when you consider the
DNA assemblages. Where I commented earlier on a 3% difference between
human and chimpanzee, Sagen does even better, stating that, "If the
sequences of humans and chimpanzees are compared nucleotide by nucleotide,
they differ by only l.7%. Humans and gorillas differ by 1.8%, almost as
little: humans and orangutans, 3.3%; humans and gibbons, 4.3%; humans
and rhesus monkeys, 7%; humans and lemurs, 22.6%. the more remote (both
in relatedness and, usually, in time) is their last common ancestor."
Where then is room for Bigfoot genetically? And where do you split the
human species from the ape? I must leave that for the individual reader
to decide.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burger, Lee R., 2000, In The Footsteps of Eve-The Mystery of Human Origins
Carter, George F., 1980, Earlier Than You Think-A Personal View of Man
in America
Cichon, Olsen, & James, 1990, Other Origins-The Search For The Giant
Ape In Human Prehistory
Coon, Carlton, 1963, Origin of Races
Crowe, Ray, 1996, Track Record Special Newsletter #9; Homo Erectus Descendent
As A Model For The Patterson Bigfoot
Diamond, Jared, 1991, The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee
Dickerson, Ray, and D.E. Tyler, 1999, Early Man in Oregon
DNA reference, Cell, 1997, Feldhufer Cave, Germany; Kring, et al. Nature,
Mar., 2000
DNA reference, Mezmaiskaya Cave, Russia; Nature Genetics, 2000, Krings,
et al.
See http://www.google.com
neandertal DNA
Halpin, Marjorie and Ames, M.M. (editors), Manlike Monsters on Trial
Hulse, Frederick S., 1965, The Human Species
Johanson, Donald, and Lenora, 1994, Ancestors
Leakey, Richard & R. Lewin, 1992, Origins Reconsidered
Morgan, Elaine, 1990, The Scars of Evolution-What Our Bodies Tell Us About
human Origins
Morris, Desmond, 1967, The Naked Ape
Nance, John, 1975, The Gentle Tasaday
Napier, John, 1972, Bigfoot The Yeti and Sasquatch In Myth and Reality
Oosterzee, Penny van, 2000, Dragon Bones-The Story of Peking Man
Pfeiffer, John E., 1972, The Emergence of Man, 2nd edition
Protsch, Reiner, 1978, Catalog of Fossil Hominids of North America
Sagen, Carl, and Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Sanderson, Ivan, 1961, Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life
Shackley, Myra, 1983, Still Living? Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderhal
Enigma
Stringer, Christopher and Clive Gamble, 1993, In Search of the Neanderthals
Stringer, Christopher and Robin McKie, 1997, African Exodus
Tattersall, Ian, et al, 1994, A Diverse Hominoid Fauna From The Late Middle
Pleistocene Breccia Cave Of Tham Khuyen, Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Trinkaus, Erik, and Pat Shipman, 1993, The Neandertals
Published for Craig
Heinselman's Hominology II 2002
Posted to various lists Saturday April 20, 2002
© Ray Crowe
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