Giant skeletons reported in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
until the early 20th century were a combination of hoaxes, scams, fabrications, and the misidentifications of extinct
megafauna
In zoology, megafauna (from Ancient Greek, Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and Neo-Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") are large animals. The precise definition of the term varies widely, though a common threshold is approximately , this lower en ...
. Many were reported to have been found in
Native American burial mounds
A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. ...
. Examples from to tall were reported in many parts of the United States.
The claims of "giant skeletons" were debunked in 1934 by
Aleš Hrdlička
Alois Ferdinand Hrdlička, after 1918 changed to Aleš Hrdlička (; March 30,[HRDLICKA, ALES ...](_blank)
, curator of
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
at the
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
. The Smithsonian Institution opposed the popular myth that an "ancient white race" were the
Mound Builders
Many pre-Columbian cultures in North America were collectively termed "Mound Builders", but the term has no formal meaning. It does not refer to specific people or archaeological culture but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks that in ...
. The role of the Smithsonian Institution in debunking such claims led to a
conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
* ...
that Smithsonian archeologists were destroying giants' bones in order to cover up the existence of giants.
Hrdlička blamed the reports of giant skeletons on the "will to believe" coupled with "amateur
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
s" who were unfamiliar with human anatomy. In 2014 an internet story began circulating which claimed that the Smithsonian Institution had custody of giant skeletons but they destroyed "thousands of giant skeletons" in the early 20th century. The internet story about the Smithsonian was debunked by ''
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency ...
'' and the ''
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
''.
North American settler mythology
During the nineteenth century, there was widespread belief in North America of a prehistoric lost race. European settlers embraced myths of pre-Columbian settlements from the Old World, which reframed colonization as the continuation of a primordial past in which the roles of native peoples were diminished or dismissed. Through a process that historian Douglas Hunter described as "White Tribism", the settlers interpreted signs of "intellectual and cultural capabilities" in North American ruins, as signs of whiteness in their creators.
Based on the legendary voyages of the Welsh prince
Madoc
Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd (also spelled Madog) was, according to folklore, a Welsh prince who sailed to the Americas in 1170, over 300 years before Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492. According to the story, Madoc was a son of Owain Gwynedd w ...
, the earliest English settlers sought and failed to uncover evidence of a civilizing Welsh influence in native peoples like the
Mandan
The Mandan () are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains who have lived for centuries primarily in what is now North Dakota. They are enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. About half of the Mandan still ...
. By the late eighteenth century, this paternalistic narrative had become strained, due in part to violence against the native peoples on the western frontier. White Americans developed the myth of the mound builder race, which provided a rationale for the colonization of the American Midwest. The various versions of the myth held that the
massive earthworks of the
Mississippi Valley
The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...
, like
Grave Creek Mound
The Grave Creek Mound in the Ohio River Valley in West Virginia is one of the largest conical-type burial mounds in the United States, now standing high and in diameter. The builders of the site, members of the Adena culture, moved more than ...
and the
Great Serpent Mound
The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,348-feet-long (411 m), three-feet-high prehistoric effigy mound located in Peebles, Ohio. It was built on what is known as the Serpent Mound crater plateau, running along the Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, ...
, were not built by the ancestors of Native Americans, as is now widely believed. According to the myth, the Indians had exterminated a prehistoric, white race of mound builders. This cast genocidal violence towards the Native Americans as defensive or retributive.
Josiah Priest's ''American Antiquities'', released in 1833, crystallized the idea of a lost race—mentioned in the Book of Genesis—that created the monuments of North America before being exterminated by savages.
Between 1812 and the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
(18611865), nearly all Americans writing about the continent's history used the myth of the white mound-building race.
In literature,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems " Paul Revere's Ride", '' The Song of Hiawatha'', and '' Evangeline''. He was the first American to comp ...
imagined
The Skeleton in Armor (now accepted to be a native leader), as a lovesick Norse Viking eloping with his "fair" and "blue-eyed" lover.
Sarah Josepha Hale
Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (October 24, 1788April 30, 1879) was an American writer, activist, and editor of the most widely circulated magazine in the period before the American Civil War, Civil War, ''Godey's Lady's Book''. She was the author of t ...
accompanied her ''The Genius of Oblivion'' with end notes that claim "the ancient inhabitants
uried in the moundswere of a different race from the Indians." Preachers taught a biblical basis for the primordial race, including connections to the lost tribes or the
Nephilim
The Nephilim (; ''Nəfīlīm'') are mysterious beings or humans in the Bible traditionally understood as being of great size and strength, or alternatively beings of great power and authority. The origins of the Nephilim are disputed. Some, ...
, giants from the Book of Genesis.

In academia, the creators of North America's earthworks were conflated with the creators of
Mesoamerican
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...
megalithic structures, then understood to be the mythical
Toltec
The Toltec culture () was a Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula (Mesoamerican site), Tula, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoam ...
s.
According to historian Christen Mucher, the Toltec connection facilitated the adoption of Spanish stories of a race of giants, like the 1519 account of the
Tlaxcala
Tlaxcala, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tlaxcala, is one of the 32 federal entities that comprise the Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into Municipalities of Tlaxcala, 60 municipalities and t ...
leaders presenting
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (December 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions o ...
with a massive bone, allegedly from a giant defeated by their ancestors.
In ''New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America'' (1798), naturalist
Benjamin Smith Barton
Benjamin Smith Barton (February10, 1766December19, 1815) was an American botanist, naturalist, and physician. He was one of the first professors of natural history in the United States and built the largest collection of botanical specimens in the ...
who was familiar with the legends of giants across North America and discoveries of mastodon bones, warned against interpreting the "discovery of bones, sculls, and entire skeletons of prodigious size" as evidence of prehistoric giants.
Despite his warning, ''New Views'' would provide the basic framework for the Mound Builder myth and the later waves of giant skeleton reports.
As more information was discovered about Native American cultural complexity, the lost race became increasingly described as physically superior giants.
Con artist George Hull created the
Cardiff Giant
The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous archaeological hoaxes in American history. It was a , roughly 3,000 pound purported "petrified man", uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell ...
hoax after an argument with Henry Turk, a preacher who taught that the biblical giants had literally walked the Earth.
PT Barnum commissioned a copy of the hoaxed giant, after a plan to have an 18-foot tall "skeleton prepared from various bones" failed.
The belief became so widespread, that Abraham Lincoln referenced the lost race of giants along with extinct Mastodons when describing the age of Niagara Falls.
Hundreds of newspaper articles credulously described the purported discovery of giant skeletons, sometimes with anatomical irregularities attributed to the Nephilim.
For example, a massive skeleton unearthed in Tennessee toured the state as a specimen of this lost race. The reconstructed skeleton was mounted to a timber frame in a standing position with missing bones recreated from wood and rawhide.
Preachers, doctors, and journalists confirmed it to "belong to the genus homo" despite a standing height estimated up to twenty feet tall.
When the giant was taken to New Orleans, medical doctor William Carpenter found it to be a young mastodon's remains. Carpenter reported that there was not fraud—the man exhibiting the bones boxed them up after discovering they were not human—but rather a widespread desire to believe.
The mastodon ceased to be exhibited as a person, but soon other purported giants were unearthed, exhibited, reported, or sold for profit.

Throughout the 19th century, some scholars expressed doubt about the excavations of purported giants but had little impact on public perception.
Many readers embraced the skeletons as evidence of biblical history, against unpopular experts whose discoveries undermined a literal interpretation of the bible.
[ With a rise in white literacy rates and the emergence of the cheaper ]penny press
Penny Publications, LLC is an American magazine publisher specializing in puzzles, crosswords, sudokus as well as mystery and science fiction magazines. Penny Publications publishes over 85 magazines distributed through newsstands, in store ...
newspapers, there was a strong market for these tales that gave them greater impact than university scholarship. Stories frequently ran presenting as straight fact: hoaxes, scams, and misinterpretations of extinct megafauna
In zoology, megafauna (from Ancient Greek, Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and Neo-Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") are large animals. The precise definition of the term varies widely, though a common threshold is approximately , this lower en ...
. Some newspapers outright fabricated stories. The ''St. Louis Evening Chronicle'' published the account of researchers who explored a subterranean city beneath Moberly, Missouri
Moberly is a city in Randolph County, Missouri, United States. The population was 13,783 as of the 2020 census. It is part of the Columbia metropolitan area and the 9-county Columbia–Jefferson City–Moberly combined statistical area that h ...
. The account described massive underground streets where a skeleton—three times larger than a typical human—was found slumped over a public fountain. Other newspapers reported the Moberly claims as factual and republished the entire story including implausible details like the researcher who, upon drinking from the skeleton's fountain, described the water as "very sweet and nice".
Ethnologist Cyrus Thomas
Cyrus Thomas (July 27, 1825 – June 26, 1910) was an American ethnologist and entomologist prominent in the late 19th century and noted for his studies of the natural history of the American West.
Biography
Thomas was born in Kingsport, ...
spent years compiling his ''Report on the Mound Explorations'' for the Smithsonian Institution. The 1894 in-depth study on North America's earthworks provided over seven hundred pages of conclusive evidence that they were built by native peoples. Thomas' report shifted academic attitudes but news reports of giant skeletons continued to come out for decades afterward. It was common for the stories to claim that the bones were sent to the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian's Bureau of Ethnology did encourage those excavating mounds, to send Native American bones to their Mound Exploration Division. Prior to the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the Smithsonian collected over 18,000 of these skeletons. However, the sensationalist newspaper articles were often invoking the Smithsonian's name in order to lend credibility.
As late as 1950, Paxson Hayes
Charles Paxson Hayes (July 27, 1892 – September 7, 1952) was a minor media figure in the early 20th century, described as an "explorer" in American press. A noted reptile enthusiast, Hayes spread pseudohistorical tales of giant human skeletons ...
was featured for his claim that "blonde giants" once lived in the Americas. Paxson's claims were repeated in Frank Scully's 1950 book ''Behind the Flying Saucers'' and the writings of Meade Layne
Meade Layne (September 8, 1882May 12, 1961) was an American academic and early researcher of ufology and parapsychology, best known for proposing an early version of the interdimensional hypothesis to explain flying saucer sightings.
Early life ...
.
Debunking claims
In 1934, Aleš Hrdlička
Alois Ferdinand Hrdlička, after 1918 changed to Aleš Hrdlička (; March 30,[HRDLICKA, ALES ...](_blank)
, curator of anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
at the Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
rejected the existence of a race of giants between seven and tall. Hrdlička blamed the "will to believe" for the many reports of giant "discoveries". Hrdlička blamed amateur anthropologist
An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
s for being fooled by the bones. He stated that people were most often fooled by the length of the femur
The femur (; : femurs or femora ), or thigh bone is the only long bone, bone in the thigh — the region of the lower limb between the hip and the knee. In many quadrupeds, four-legged animals the femur is the upper bone of the hindleg.
The Femo ...
bone because they are often not familiar with human anatomy. Hrdlička also stated that reports of giant skeletons occurred two or three times per month.
In 2020 ''The Columbus Dispatch
''The Columbus Dispatch'' is a daily newspaper based in Columbus, Ohio. Its first issue was published on July 1, 1871, and it has been the only mainstream daily newspaper in the city since ''The Columbus Citizen-Journal'' ceased publication in ...
'' reported that archeologist, Donald Ball collected articles about giant skeletons which were purportedly found in burial mounds dating as far back as 1845. He determined that when the claims about giant skeletons were scrutinized they did not reveal giant skeletons. One story in the Indianapolis Journal
The ''Indianapolis Journal'' was a newspaper published in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The paper published daily editions every evening except on Sundays, when it published a morning edition.
Histor ...
reported on August 29, 1883, that a skeleton had been found. Dr. M. M. Adams investigated and concluded that the bones were "not of a giant" and the individual was not "above five feet eight inches in height". He determined that it was a "giant fraud" upon the people.
Internet hoax
In 2014, an internet story reported that the Smithsonian Institution had custody of many giant skeletons and destroyed "thousands of giant skeletons" in the early 1900s. ''Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency ...
'' determined that the origin of the story was a satirical website called ''World News Daily Report
World News Daily Report (WNDR) was a satirical fake news website purporting to be an American Jewish Zionist newspaper based in Tel Aviv and dedicated to covering biblical archeology news and other mysteries around the globe.
It is run by Canadia ...
''. A spokesperson for the Smithsonian confirmed that the story was not true. The satirical story claimed that the American Institution of Alternative Archeology accused the Smithsonian of a coverup. The Associated Press also investigated and determined that the story was false.
Giant of Castelnau
"Giant of Castelnau" refers to three bone fragments (a humerus
The humerus (; : humeri) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius (bone), radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extrem ...
, tibia
The tibia (; : tibiae or tibias), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two Leg bones, bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outsi ...
, and femoral mid-shaft) discovered by Georges Vacher de Lapouge
Count Georges Vacher de Lapouge (; 12 December 1854 – 20 February 1936) was a French anthropologist and a theoretician of eugenics and scientific racism. He is known as the founder of anthroposociology, the anthropological and sociological study ...
in 1890 in the sediment used to cover a Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
burial tumulus
A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...
, and dating possibly back to the Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
. Lapouge determined that the fossil bones may belong to one of the largest human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...
s known to have existed. However, in 2022, Katherine Hacanyan asserted that this discovery by Lapouge was most likely a cave bear
The cave bear (''Ursus spelaeus'') is a prehistoric species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum.
Both the word ''cave'' and the scientific name '' ...
and not a human. Giant skeletons of animals were often mistaken for giant human bones during previous centuries and during the early 20th century. This was due to a lack of expertise in human bone structure by those who discovered the bones. Also, some discoveries were intentionally misrepresented for various reasons.
1984 Study
In 1984, the anthropologist Sheilagh Brooks examined the Reid Collection, an assemblage of Native American skeletons unearthed in Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...
by John Reid in the early 1900s which was said to contain an individual that measured . However, Brooks found that no skeleton measured more than . Brooks concluded that since Reid estimated the heights of these skeletons by measuring their femurs against his thigh, his overestimate likely occurred because he was unaware that the head of the femur is inserted in the pelvic socket and does not extend outward.
2024 Study
In 2019, the Travel Channel series ''Code of the Wild'' aired an episode in which a pre-Columbian skeleton was presented that was allegedly 7 feet tall and Salasaca
Salasaca is a community and an indigenous people located in the Tungurahua Province in the center of Ecuador, halfway along the road from Ambato to Baños. The Salasaca speak Spanish and their traditional language of Quichua. Their main eco ...
storytellers were interviewed that related oral traditions of giants.
In 2024, Nicholas Landol used mathematical formula to determine that the individual was actually only between 153.34 cm and 162.37 cm and that due to the disarticulation that a skeleton experiences after death, a skeleton can appear larger than it is. As this was only one sample they also wrote that "Future analysis remains essential, however, to the evaluation of the Indigenous oral traditions of Ecuador".
Similar hoaxes outside the United States
The fact-checking
Fact-checking is the process of verifying the factual accuracy of questioned reporting and statements. Fact-checking can be conducted before or after the text or content is published or otherwise disseminated. Internal fact-checking is such che ...
website Snopes
''Snopes'' (), formerly known as the ''Urban Legends Reference Pages'', is a fact-checking website. It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet. The site has also been seen as a source ...
records similar hoaxes in Saudi Arabia and India.
See also
*Cardiff Giant
The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous archaeological hoaxes in American history. It was a , roughly 3,000 pound purported "petrified man", uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Giant skeletons
19th century in the United States
20th century in the United States
Hoaxes in the United States
Skeletons