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HOMO GARDARENSIS - GLOSSARY OF LIVING FOSSILS AMONG THE PRIMATES - THE MINNESOTA ICEMAN
The mystery primates have been making headlines for a century. Prior to that, more than a hundred years ago, they were in the headlines as "Wild Men." For the last fifty years they have been prominent in North America as reports of Bigfoot and Sasquatch. After several decades of study in the 20th century we can break out the origins of these hairy beings. They can be recognized as living fossils, that is, primates known from fossils that are also still living in the wilds around the world. The results of this study are summarized on this page.
In 2003 the Bigfoot reports were said to worthy of study by some famous people. Among them were Jane Goodall and George Schaller. The comments of several primate specialists can be found in the DENVER POST for January 5, 2003 ("Bigfoot believers: Legitimate scientific study of legend gains backing of top primate experts" by Theo Stein). The full article can be purchased from the POST at http://www.denverpost.com/archives.
The findings of cryptozoology are that distinctive primates have survived into modern times. They include the hominids known as Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis (Trolls), and Homo neandertalensis. Fossil finds have increasingly supported the contention that these fossil men have all lived at the same time.
The existence of Little People has been confirmed by the discovery of Homo floresiensis.
The 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film and a consistent production of associated tracks and sightings are support for the survival of Paranthropus in the New World. A parallel collection of tracks and sightings exists in the mountains of India and China for the Neo-Giants.
The unique size and distinctive tracks of True Giants in the Old World and the New have indicated the survival of Gigantopithecus. It would be more correct to designate this primate as Gigantanthropus, as one early proposal did. The matter will be settled by the find of bones beyond the jaws and teeth that have turned up so far.
The Yeti is another survivor. The most likely antecedent among fossil apes is Dryopithecus. This large ape was successful in the Old World. Its descendants remain in small numbers in remote areas. Some close relatives might also be around to account for other varieties of successful apes including the Orang Pendek of Sumatra.
The most controversial of survivors - for the time being - is Oreopithecus. This unique fossil find from several millions of years ago could be the ancestor to the varieties of water apemen reported around the world in recent centuries. The long-held prejudice against the very idea of apemen having adapted to water environments has prevented reasonable consideration of this origin for the apemen. Their use of swimming costumes adapted from marine mammals and fish has created a misleading notion of hybrid creatures.
WHEN PROOF IS NOT ENOUGH
For eighty years there has been proof of advanced non-human primates present in the New World. Bones of such a primate were excavated by Danish archaeologists from a grave at Gardar in Greenland in 1926. What happened to that evidence?
Giving credit where it is due, the bones were recognized as extraordinary by an anthropologist in Copenhagen. He was the only one speaking up at the time. Another anthropologist dismissed them as a case of acromegaly. That excuse became the safe and noncontroversial way to deal with them.
We can point to a context for the Gardar find in the extensive knowledge of Trolls in the area of Greenland, Labrador, and the modern record of encounters with Trolls. (See
The Dorset Culture
on the WONDERS ARCHIVE page.) No such context was put forward back in the 1930s, however. The argument centered solely on the bones. Only one man was willing to think outside of the box at the time. When he died, the way was clear to push the find (named Homo gardarensis) aside and continue on as if they had little value.
It has been the method of professional men to treat such finds as something to be explained away. It was branded an isolated case not worthy of much attention. An attempt is being made right now to give the same treatment to the find of Homo floresiensis in Indonesia. Even the supporters of H. floresiensis are intimidated by the reluctance in the anthropological community to recognize that "hobbits" are still living and can be found in many places.
We would be well served by making a comparison of the Greenland finds with the bones found in 1968 in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. If they were seen to have similarities, the arguments for isolated conditions would fall apart. But the BWCA bones have been mislaid after being shipped to the Smithsonian. (See the
Museum of Lost Bones.
)
We would be well served by a comparison with the bones found by Sam Eddy in a Minnesota bog. Those bones were not given proper treatment and have been dispersed without any surviving official description.
We might find some value in a comparison with the Minaret Calvarium found in California. But that bone was allowed to disappear, probably by being stored away in a UCLA warehouse. No one knows which crate to open in order to recover the bone.
These are all examples of what can happen to the bones that people like to think would validate the many accounts of man-like creatures made famous as "wild men" and "Bigfoot." The bone finds have been made already, but they were treated poorly. Only one of them has been publicly described. So that has allowed it to be dismissed as an isolated case. The others became lost (by professional men) before the world at large knew that the bones even existed.
When someone says there are no bones of this kind in the New World or when someone wishes that a bone be found to validate the "wild man" stories, we need to recall this historical record. Bones are found but they are routinely mishandled by people whose mindset has been and remains unwilling and unable to deal with the idea that such a discovery can be made. Professional people who can think outside the box are few and far between.
(The find of Homo gardarensis was discussed at length in chapter 2 of LIVING FOSSILS by Mark A. Hall published in 1999.)
To the WONDERS Archive
A MISSED OPPORTUNITY IN 2006
SASQUATCH: LEGEND MEETS SCIENCE
by Jeff Meldrum
Tom Doherty Associates Book, New York, 2006
WHEN LEGENDS MEET SCIENCE
When an anthropologist with a scientific background authors a book on the Sasquatch phenomenon, we hope to see a worthy addition to the past works on this topic. Previous books have included Ivan Sanderson's ABOMINABLE SNOWMEN in 1961, John Napier's BIGFOOT in 1972, and Grover Krantz' BIG FOOTPRINTS in 1992. Sadly I find SASQUATCH: LEGEND MEETS SCIENCE to be a dreadful muddle. The author, Jeff Meldrum, displays three major failings that undercut this 2006 effort at exploring the reports of hairy primates reported in North America.
His constant use of "the creature," "wildman" and the label of Sasquatch to identify the primates is a simplification that is fifty years out-of-date. A half century ago a simplified view of the topic was understandable. As the decades have passed, we have seen the evidence for several distinctive categories of primates emerge. Meldrum is grouping apples and oranges and treating them as one population of primates. This approach allows him to assume all evidence is accountable to one category of primate, but it is a false assumption that ruins his attempts to analyze the records.
The sorting of these categories was well underway by the time Meldrum found an interest in the subject in 1996. Those who want a basic introduction to the issues should refer to the FIELD GUIDE TO BIGFOOT AND OTHER MYSTERY PRIMATES by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe (Anomalist Books) which first appeared in 1999.
Next, in LEGEND MEETS SCIENCE the choice to identify the "single population" is Gigantopithecus. The creature in the Patterson-Gimlin film is discussed at length in this book. But that image shows a Paranthropoid primate, not the ape that Meldrum imagines to be Gigantopithecus.
Thirdly, Meldrum fails to recognize that the Ray Wallace fake imprints have become part of his database. For a professional claiming an expertise in the study of footprints, this lapse is a costly and tragic error. He had a chance to rid himself of this pollution, but he has failed to do so.
Meldrum did not have to uncover the fakery on his own. The history of how these fakes came into being has already been told. The hoaxing tools were publicly displayed in December of 2002 after Ray Wallace died. I was one who wanted to know how these fakes had found their way into so many places. They appeared in Sanderson's 1961 book and in many popular books and articles since that time.
When it was shown that these were hoaxed impressions, it became important to throw out the trash and leave us with valid data. So I reviewed the records for the 1950s and 1960s. I published an article that came out in April of 2003 that illustrated the three sets of fake feet that were associated with Ray Wallace. I followed up with two more articles as more of the history of hoaxing emerged.* Meldrum has failed to learn the history and throw out the garbage.
Perhaps he has been unduly influenced by those who were also fooled by Ray Wallace and cannot acknowledge their mistakes. But Meldrum is not an amateur investigator. According to the publicity for this book he has even been given a grant of $30,000 to further his studies of the phenomenon. He should be leading the effort to throw out the bad data. Instead we find him defending the fakes.
In LEGEND MEETS SCIENCE he illustrates only one of the most prominent of the wooden tools used, the right foot. It is the wooden tool for the left foot that produced the most often photographed images. It shows up in widely published cases of trackways seen in California. It has been cast in plaster, despite Meldrum's assertion that it has not. Those who cannot admit to this particular success by Ray Wallace have kept this tool out of the books they continue to publish, and Meldrum has taken the same sorry path by illustrating only one of the two wooden tools.
Keep these shortcomings in mind if you read this book.
One of the better contributions the book makes is to tell the story of Robert Gimlin who was present when the Patterson-Gimlin film was made in October of 1967. The film is of such importance that the record of its creation remains under study almost forty years later. The film was summarily dismissed by two men at the American Museum of Natural History. All the positive commentary since then has not been able to undo that damage. Gimlin's account helps to put into a credible context the many opportunists' bogus claims to have participated in the making of the film.
The basis for the Sasquatch phenomenon is not so simple as LEGEND MEETS SCIENCE would have you accept. An exploration that cleared away the misconceptions would have been welcomed. But this book will serve to reinforce outmoded ideas and rehearse bad data. An opportunity to make a major contribution to the subject has been missed.
*"The Real Bigfoot and Genuine Bigfoot Tracks" in WONDERS Volume 7, pages 99-125.
"The Bigfoot Community's Wallace Problem" in WONDERS Volume 8, pages 44-53.
"October 1958 in the History of Bigfoot" in WONDERS Volume 9, pages 85-96.
- Mark A. Hall
A 1967 IMPRINT AND THE WOODEN TOOL FOR LEFT IMPRINTS
UPDATE - JANUARY 10, 2007
Reactions to these comments on SASQUATCH: LEGEND MEETS SCIENCE have been appearing on more than one internet list. The large quantity of junk created by Ray Wallace over decades has confused some people. Three sets of hoaxed foot images were described by me in WONDERS Volume 7. A fourth set was used to create 13-inch long imprints in 1967. In addition Wallace was photographed by the Los Angeles TIMES in 1982 with two sets of CONCRETE cast shapes, as noted by me in Volume 7. Those were also fakes. Probably they were made only to be sold to tourists.
The most often seen imprints were made by two foot forms carved from alder wood. Dale Lee Wallace was photographed holding square to the camera one of these WOODEN tools at the start of the Wallace publicity in December 2002. It was the "left foot" tool. Therefore there is no good excuse, as some would have you think, that this was not seen by Meldrum or by anyone else. It is this particular tool that does not appear in LEGEND MEETS SCIENCE. Other books written by people who continue to endorse Wallace fakes have also omitted this particular tool. Instead they have given their readers only the “right foot” tool to make comparisons. Both wooden tools were worn down over the years. The right one had even developed a crack. This selective omission indicates an attempt on the part of those authors to manipulate the readers of those books.
Where are the Bones?
The hard evidence has been misplaced
A large lump under the carpet of modern paleo-anthropology is Homo gardarensis. Those bones were found in a Norse graveyard in Greenland in 1926. They were swept under the rug after the death of F.C. C. Hansen. The Danish scientist saw that they were unique and important, but others did not. So the bones have been neglected and mislabeled as a case of acromegaly ever since. How such as a miscarriage could occur is being demonstrated anew as scientists grapple with the remains of the "hobbits" found in Indonesia.
There is no reason to twist in the wind as voices are raised trying to scuttle the findings made in Indonesia. The "hobbits" are on solid ground. Those people who are informed about the existence of Little People in Indonesia (the Ebu Gogo) and in other places around the globe are aware of this. The "hobbits" are exactly what was predicted by me in LIVING FOSSILS written in 1999. The Little People and their probable ancestry among the Australopithecines were also cited by me in subsequent articles leading up to the discovery of Homo floresiensis announced in 2004.
What is being demonstrated by the war of words (not facts) is that there is a tremendous investment in the status quo. So there is little wonder that after Hansen's death no one would take up the case for Homo gardarensis. The scientific establishment had a convenient excuse to shove the bones under the proverbial rug. They labeled them as a rare instance of a disease and locked the bones away from further study. They are gathering dust at the Panum Institute in Copenhagen.
Now the attempt is ongoing to label the remains of Homo floresiensis as a case of disease, i.e., microcephaly. This time, however, there is a team of scientists who have made the right analysis. They are not giving up. They are not embroiled in other controversies, as Hansen was. And they are not going to die soon and leave the field to their opponents. They are going to win this one. But the spectacle of flailing attempts to scuttle the existence of "hobbits" is something to behold.
We see ever more clearly why people fled from the implications of the find of Homo gardarensis. When you have something new, even when you have the bones to prove your case, there are many people who will not see it. They will make faulty arguments and then proudly pat themselves on the back with unfounded statements like: "We have eliminated the idea of a new species."
Now we need to find a team of scientists who will pick up the neglected bones of Homo gardarensis and face the opposition that has kept the world ignorant of the truth about those bones – the solid evidence for trolls -- for the past 80 years.
The Bones from a 12th Century Grave
The bones of Homo gardarensis were excavated from a Norse graveyard in Greenland in 1926. Prof. F. C. C. Hansen of Copenhagen announced that the bones appeared to be those of something like a Troll. He gave them the type name of Homo gardarensis.
One famous anthropologist, Sir Arthur Keith, after looking at photographs of the finds, dismissed them as a case of acromegaly. When Hansen died, there was no one to challenge this dismissal. The charge of disease stuck, and the find has been neglected ever since. The bones are locked away at the Panum Institute in Copenhagen.
Among the many modern “Bigfoot” reports are Troll-like men and women. They are still being seen in North America. Records from the Greenland colonies mention Trolls and how a few of them actually lived with the Norse. Such men were also known to the Eskimos as the Tunnit (or Tornit) and the archaeological remains of their relatives are called the Dorset Culture.
If the bones of Homo gardarensis were re-examined, this important find could still be rescued after 80 years of neglect.
The burial of this individual could be dated to the 12th century. Substantial portions of the cranium and jawbone were found, as well some bones of the body. Here are some illustrations of the bones of Homo gardarensis.
(* denotes a major entry)
ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN - Popular name for the Yeti in the 20th century. Then it was applied to hairy creatures almost anywhere in the world, so it has lost almost any usefulness. See YETIS.
ALMAS. See HOMO ERECTUS.
BANMANUS (BANMANCHE). See HOMO ERECTUS.
BIGFOOT. See NEO-GIANTS.
BUSHMEN. See NEANDERTALS.
*CENTAURS. With artistic license, Centaurs have been portrayed as having six limbs. The original centaurs were no such monstrosity. They had only four limbs. They were called “the beast-men of the hills” in ancient times They were apes with lower limbs that could assume the “goat-legged posture” that also has been identified with the Satyrs. They are creatures closely related to the Satyrs. The modern reports of Centaurs are describing creatures that are tall and hairy apes. They have been characterized often as “werewolves.” They have survived into modern times as one of the most mysterious of the living fossils among the primates. (Source: “Satyrs and Centaurs” in WONDERS Volume 10)
DRYOPITHECUS. See YETIS.
EBU GOGO. See LITTLE PEOPLE.
GIGANTOPITHECUS. See TRUE GIANTS.
GOAT-MEN. See SATYRS.
HOBBITS. See LITTLE PEOPLE.
*HOMO ERECTUS (known also as the Least-hominid and by many popular names in Asia, such as Almas, Banmanus)-The survivors of this capable fossil man are still around in Asia, particularly in the least hospitable areas such as deserts and jungles. Zana is the name of one female who was held in captivity for some time. Others have also been caught or killed, probably due in great measure to their low intelligence. One of their number was killed in the mid-1960s and was sold into the hands of Americans who exhibited the frozen corpse (" the Minnesota Iceman"). Source: LIVING FOSSILS (1999) by Mark A. Hall.
HOMO FLORESIENSIS. See LITTLE PEOPLE.
HOMO GARDARENSIS. See TROLLS.
*KENNEWICK PEOPLE - The contemporaries of Kennewick Man lived some ten thousand and more years ago. Their only recognized descendants are relatives in Japan known as the Ainu. The Kennewick People came into the New World in advance of the American Indians. The Indians then replaced the Kennewick People by force. Source: LIVING FOSSILS.
*LITTLE PEOPLE - Defined by the finds made on Flores in Indonesia. These dwarfish people were popularly called "hobbits" and given the scientific name of Homo floresiensis. The local name for them in legend was Ebu Gogo. Said to be still living in hiding on Flores and reported captured on rare occasions. Many parallel traditions exist in other parts of the world, for example, the Menehune in Hawaii.
LIZARDMEN. See MERMEN and MERMAIDS.
MARKED HOMINID. See TROLLS.
MENEHUNE. See LITTLE PEOPLE.
*MERMEN and MERMAIDS - The merfolk of legend have a solid place in reality around the globe. They sometimes wear swimming outfits with tails of marine animals. They are likely to be the result of an early form of hominoid having adapted itself to a water environment. The best candidate for this origin is Oreopithecus. This early primate has always been seen as hard to place in the scheme of primate evolution. It appears to have taken to the water and diversified its forms to suit freshwater and marine habitats. They are known today also by such names as Lizardmen and Reptoids. (Source: LIZARDMEN by Mark A. Hall - 2006)
MINNESOTA ICEMAN - Much uninformed rubbish is still being written about this object. It was removed from exhibition at the start of 1969. It was on public exhibit only in 1967 and 1968. It was replaced by a model that was well made. Most people have only seen that model. At the end of 1968 it was examined by Ivan T. Sanderson and Bernard Heuvelmans. From their descriptions published in GENUS (Sanderson) and in the BULLETIN OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF BELGIUM (Heuvelmans) it appears to have been a corpse of Homo erectus killed in Asia, preserved in ice and shipped to the USA after purchase by an unidentified owner. See Homo erectus.
*NEANDERTALS / NEANDERTHALS (Also called the Shorter-hominid, Bushmen) - The "Bushmen" of Alaska and the Canadian North are remnants of Neandertals surviving into our times. They spend winters in concealed lodges, and are glimpsed in the forests the rest of the year. (Source: LIVING FOSSILS by Mark A. Hall)
*NEO-GIANTS (Known as Patterson's Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and some local American Indian names) - The hairy men and their mates are the husky, shy and retiring, mostly vegetarian giants you have seen depicted in movies. A female was captured on film in 1967 by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. Their usual habitat is found in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Similar giants have been reported from mountains in Asia. (Source: THE YETI, BIGFOOT & TRUE GIANTS - 2005)
NORTH AMERICAN APE. See YETIS.
ORANG PENDEK. See SATYRS.
PATTERSON'S BIGFOOT. See NEO-GIANTS.
REPTOID. See MERMEN and MERMAIDS.
SASQUATCH. See NEO-GIANTS.
*SATYRS - A form of ape related to the Yetis. Their extraordinary physical capabilities have caused them to be called "goat-men" from a mistaken perception of their mode of locomotion. The Orang Pendek of Sumatra is a small form of Satyr. (Sources: "The Satyrs in Our Midst" in WONDERS Volume 9 and "Satyrs and Centaurs" in WONDERS Volume 10)
SHORTER-HOMINIDS. See NEANDERTALS.
TALLER-HOMINIDS. See TROLLS.
*TROLLS (aka Taller-hominids, Marked Hominids) - We have the best evidence for the survival of Trolls. Bones dug out of a Norse graveyard in 1926 help to define them. The bones were designated Homo gardarensis. They are still reported from one end of North America to the other. They were present at the Ape Canyon incident in 1924. (Source: LIVING FOSSILS by Mark A. Hall)
*TRUE GIANTS - The tree-tall True Giants are the descendants of Gigantopithecus, the largest primate ever known. Even the fossil finds made in Asia are few, consisting only of teeth and partial jawbones. When a better picture emerges from fossils, people will begin to take seriously the extraordinary reports made around the world of living True Giants. (Source: THE YETI, BIGFOOT & TRUE GIANTS - 2005)
WEREWOLF. See CENTAURS
*YETIS - The famous Abominable Snowmen of Asia are apes that dwell in high mountains and islands on the fringes. They are also reported from Africa and the New World. They have been called the North American Ape. Their origin in the fossil record is likely to be the ape known as Dryopithecus. (Source: THE YETI, BIGFOOT & TRUE GIANTS - 2005)
In 1967 and 1968 what appeared to be a frozen corpse of a hairy man was carted around the USA by Frank Hansen, a Minnesota exhibitor. He said he was asked by a wealthy Californian to show "the thing" that had been frozen into a block of ice. That man had told Hansen that he bought it as a curio in Hong Kong. The details of what it was only came into view when Hansen had the huge block of ice shaved down around the upper contours of the outstretched body.
The story of a Hong Kong origin might be true. The corpse was examined in December of 1968 – while still confined to the ice behind glass in its specially-made refrigerated coffin – by Ivan Sanderson and Bernard Heuvelmans. They published detailed descriptions separately, Sanderson in GENUS (published in Rome, Italy) and Heuvelmans in the BULLETIN OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF BELGIUM. What they described matches a living fossil reported only in Asia, Homo erectus.
When the heat was on to examine the corpse outside of the ice block, Hansen replaced the original exhibit with a well-made copy. In 1969 and for years afterward this copy of the Iceman – now famous – was displayed and rented out until it deteriorated so badly it could no longer be shown.
Much confusion has followed in the wake of this exhibit because few people have bothered to seek out and read the detailed descriptions made of the original object. The descriptions in popular magazine articles have led people to believe that any model that was made could have been the original object. Some writers have insisted that it was never anything but a hoax. But one day the detailed descriptions of Sanderson and Heuvelmans will be found to match the "wild men" of Asia, called "Almas," "Banmanus," and other local names. People in Asia have been encountering, capturing, and sometimes killing the living descendants of Homo erectus for centuries. A famous case was a "wild woman" given the name of Zana in the Caucasus.
LINKS TO MORE ABOUT LIVING FOSSILS
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