Extinct Giant Ape Depended Upon Forest Food

[norseman]

They sound pretty sure Gigantopithecus went extinct a long time ago...  because of a lack of food. Never mind crossing the frozen land bridge into the Americas, not even a consideration in their mind.

 

Extinct Giant Ape Depended Upon Forest Food

 

FRANKFURT, GERMANY—Scientists from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment in Tübingen, and the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, analyzed stable carbon isotopes from the tooth enamel of the little-known giant ape Gigantopithecus. “Unfortunately, there are very few fossil finds of Gigantopithecus—only a few large teeth and bones from the lower mandible are known,†Hervé Bocherens of the University of Tubingen said in a press release.

 

Those fossils are from China and Thailand, which had open savannas and wooden landscapes.

 

The new study of carbon isotopes indicates that Gigantopithecus was a vegetarian that lived only in forests. “Relatives of the giant ape, such as the recent orangutan, have been able to survive despite their specialization on a certain habitat. However, orangutans have a slow metabolism and are able to survive on limited food.

 

Due to its size, Gigantopithecus presumably depended on a large amount of food. When during the Pleistocene era more and more forested areas turned into savanna landscapes, there was simply an insufficient food supply for the giant ape,†Bocherens said.

My immediate question would be.....then how did the giant Panda manage to survive until now? Same area of the world and same loss of forested habitat?

[Bodhi]

 

Thanks crowlogic, I was going to ask:

 

if BF exists and it's not gigantopithecus, then what is it?

My guess is it'd be a super robust Australopithecus.  BF don't seem to have use of fire or subtle tools.  It's too humansque to be a big orangutan.  How it manages to exist in cold northern climates without technology is a problem.  We humans would be driven out of the cold if we lost our basic technology set of fire, shelter fabrication and clothing.

 

Ahh,

Remember though that the original sasquatch reported by the Salish people lived in villages, had rudimentary clothes and dwellings, used tools and (I think) had fire. We didn't end up with the "modern sasquatch" till many years later. So, your idea on Australopithecus is actually right in line with the original sasquatch stories.

[norseman]

Bodhi where are you getting your info from?

The earliest Salish account is Rev. Walkers and it fits a modern Sasquatch very well...

[Bodhi]

Bodhi where are you getting your info from?

The earliest Salish account is Rev. Walkers and it fits a modern Sasquatch very well...

Hey Norseman,

I'm at the office but I'll see if I can pull the book off my kindle account.

[Yuchi1]

As an aside, if you wished to remain largely undetected would you employ tactics that would virtually guarantee detection such as constructing dwelling structures, use of fire, farming and other such activities that would require remaining in one place for an extended time period and thus, leaving substantially more forensic evidence of such abiding?

[Bodhi]

Norse,

The earliest accounts from the Salish come from the Fraser Valley in B.C.in the 1920's as collected by John W. Fraser. He was the one who took the Halkomelem language/word of the Coast Salish People and anglicized it into sasquatch. As per Suttles', Coast Salish Essays in 1974. Burns was an "Indian agent" and teacher who worked on the Chelhalis Indian Reserve near Harrison Hot Springs. He started to collect the stories told to him by friends and after three years of he was allowed to talk to eyewitnesses among the tribe. As per J.W. Burns' interview/article in, "Introducing B.C.'s Hairy Giants" in Macleans April 1, 1929 & reprinted by John Green in "The Sasquatch File" 1973.

Those witnesses described sasquatches as men. In fact John Green's explains that the first reports described sasquatch as giant Indians with clothes, fire, weapons and living in villages. They were called hairy giants but it was understood that the phrase meant the they had long hair on their heads. As per John Green, "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968.

 

From what I've read the "modern" sasquatch started in 1957 when B.C. released funding for the celebration of the B.C. centennial and Harrison Hot Springs asked for asked $600 for a sasquatch hunt as a publicity stunt. This is where John Green steps in as a figure in sasquatch lore. Per his book "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968. The stunt gained all sorts of advertising and promotion as news papers around the world ran the story. Per the Vancouver Sun "Let's Not Forget the Sasquatchewan Trade" 1957. The B.C. Centennial Committee offered $5000 for an alive "hairy man". Per Vancouver Sun - "Wanted: Sasquatch-$5000 Reward" 1957. This might have been when Dahinden did his first expedition as well.  At this time Burns affirmed that sasquatch were believed by the Salish to be their descendants. Per Vancouver Sun "Nothing Monstrous About Sasquatch, Says Their Pal" 1957.

 

It was only now that William Roe stepped forward with his claim of a eyewitness sighting of sasquatch giving it the modern description of being ape-like. Per John Green in both "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968 and "The Best of Sasquatch Bigfoot" 04. Roe claimed that the sighting occurred in 1955 though, while he was hiking. Roe's account is around, I think that Coleman has a description of in the book "Bigfoot!" ( I don't know the year of that one). Funny thing is Roe is a bit of an unknown. Green was mailed a sworn statement purportedly from Roe or a friend of Roe's but he never interviewed him and no one ever visited the sight where Roe claimed to have had the sighting. Per Green "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968. Nor could Green find anyone to whom Roe had told his story to prior the the 1957 publicity stunt. Again, Green "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968.

 

That's the origin of the original sasquatch people and the modern iteration as I understand it. I welcome additional information.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Bodhi

[hiflier]

Hello Bodhi,

 

Whoooooo baby! Nice post.

[Bodhi]

Norse,

I have an edit to insert. I It was the Fraser Valley but the fellow collecting the stories is J.W. BURNS. Just hand Fraser on the brain I guess. Apologies for any confusion.

[MIB]

Might or might not be accurate, I don't have a dog in that particular fight, but it makes it somewhat necessary to point something out.

 

We had "hairy wildman" reports in SW Oregon back into the 1890s.  "georgerm" can verify this.   Sixes Wildman, Thompson's Flat, couple instances in the Chetco river drainage, and into the Dora / Sitkum area on the Coquille ... at bare minimum.   These were not merely large "Indians" with long hair.

 

If sasquatch is just another tribe, then equating sasquatch and bigfoot is erroneous.   Trying to push all the weird parts into one heap and demand a single consistent explanation for all of them may not fit.

 

Splitters and blenders, whatever you want to call them.  Just as much as any other arrangement by "camp", we fall on a spectrum between trying to lump everything into one kind vs trying to define a separate kind based on every nuance.   Look how the BF community lines up on dogman.   It's akin to mixing paint.   Finesse.   Don't pour your blue and yellow together to make green, even though you need green the most, 'til you are absolutely sure you won't need either blue or yellow again 'cause it's a lot harder to separate them out after mixing.  

 

MIB

Edited January 7, 2016 by MIB

[Guest Crowlogic]

 

That's the origin of the original sasquatch people and the modern iteration as I understand it. I welcome additional information.

If the Salish were indeed primitives living apart from even the tribal natives nobody would have cared.  The only thing that captures popular imagination is the idea of a monster, something not us but something approaching us.  You don't need to be PT Barnum to understand the value of attaching the monster tag to the issue.  Let's say that an authentic Cro Magnon population was found and it fits the niche usually attributed to bigfoot how long does anyone think it'd be in pop culture news?  I suspect not very long.  So if you want attention you talk about monsters and scary things monsters may do.

[Bodhi]

Might or might not be accurate, I don't have a dog in that particular fight, but it makes it somewhat necessary to point something out.

 

We had "hairy wildman" reports in SW Oregon back into the 1890s.  "georgerm" can verify this.   Sixes Wildman, Thompson's Flat, couple instances in the Chetco river drainage, and into the Dora / Sitkum area on the Coquille ... at bare minimum.   These were not merely large "Indians" with long hair.

 

If sasquatch is just another tribe, then equating sasquatch and bigfoot is erroneous.   Trying to push all the weird parts into one heap and demand a single consistent explanation for all of them may not fit.

 

MIB

MIB,

This creature is the first mention of sasquatch. Not of all mentions of wild men, etc.

 

Coleman's "The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates"  1988 lists the monster Grendel from the poem Beowulf as a mystery primate.

Other tribes had ogres and wild men that have been shoe-horned, IMO, into the modern concept of sasquatch creating a chimera of an animal that continues to evolve to this day as new behavior is reported (again this is my opinion only) but it does seem a bit like the European settlers telling Native Americans how to understand their own legends.

Grover Krantz complained about bigfootery's tendency to do this in "Bigfoot Sasquatch Evidence" 1999.

There are stories in Suttles "Coast Salish Essays" which relate underground dwarves, soul-stealing ogres, and human-like (except for a 6 foot long quartz spike growing out of the big toe of their right foot) creatures reported by the Quinault People? All "wild men" to be sure but certainly not sasquatch and part of the history of the Salish from the Fraser Valley. There's an ogress, Dzunkuk'wa who is also a cannibal. These are all stories from Suttles "Coast Salish Essays". The ogress is not part of a group she is a monster who steals children and carries them off in a basket (like Krampus?) and then cooks and eats them.

 

So I want to draw a distinction between all wild man stories and the stories about the sasquatch people, the creatures for whom the name was coined by Burns. The sasquatch people as described related by Burns and described by the eyewitnesses with whom he spoke are sasquatches.

 

Let's not conflate the other stories of wild men with these, very specifically named and described creatures/peoples/tales.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Bodhi

[Yuchi1]

#21 & #26, thanks for the information Bodhi, IMO, spot on commentary.

[ShadowBorn]

They sound pretty sure Gigantopithecus went extinct a long time ago...  because of a lack of food. Never mind crossing the frozen land bridge into the Americas, not even a consideration in their mind.

 

Extinct Giant Ape Depended Upon Forest Food

 

FRANKFURT, GERMANY—Scientists from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment in Tübingen, and the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, analyzed stable carbon isotopes from the tooth enamel of the little-known giant ape Gigantopithecus. “Unfortunately, there are very few fossil finds of Gigantopithecus—only a few large teeth and bones from the lower mandible are known,†Hervé Bocherens of the University of Tubingen said in a press release.

 

Those fossils are from China and Thailand, which had open savannas and wooden landscapes.

 

The new study of carbon isotopes indicates that Gigantopithecus was a vegetarian that lived only in forests. “Relatives of the giant ape, such as the recent orangutan, have been able to survive despite their specialization on a certain habitat. However, orangutans have a slow metabolism and are able to survive on limited food.

 

Due to its size, Gigantopithecus presumably depended on a large amount of food. When during the Pleistocene era more and more forested areas turned into savanna landscapes, there was simply an insufficient food supply for the giant ape,†Bocherens said.

Maybe they never went extinct at all. As the earth changed they evolved with the earth as the changes took place. This change is where they went from eating leaves ,fruits and vegs to meats.

[norseman]

Norse,

The earliest accounts from the Salish come from the Fraser Valley in B.C.in the 1920's as collected by John W. Fraser. He was the one who took the Halkomelem language/word of the Coast Salish People and anglicized it into sasquatch. As per Suttles', Coast Salish Essays in 1974. Burns was an "Indian agent" and teacher who worked on the Chelhalis Indian Reserve near Harrison Hot Springs. He started to collect the stories told to him by friends and after three years of he was allowed to talk to eyewitnesses among the tribe. As per J.W. Burns' interview/article in, "Introducing B.C.'s Hairy Giants" in Macleans April 1, 1929 & reprinted by John Green in "The Sasquatch File" 1973.

Those witnesses described sasquatches as men. In fact John Green's explains that the first reports described sasquatch as giant Indians with clothes, fire, weapons and living in villages. They were called hairy giants but it was understood that the phrase meant the they had long hair on their heads. As per John Green, "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968.

From what I've read the "modern" sasquatch started in 1957 when B.C. released funding for the celebration of the B.C. centennial and Harrison Hot Springs asked for asked $600 for a sasquatch hunt as a publicity stunt. This is where John Green steps in as a figure in sasquatch lore. Per his book "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968. The stunt gained all sorts of advertising and promotion as news papers around the world ran the story. Per the Vancouver Sun "Let's Not Forget the Sasquatchewan Trade" 1957. The B.C. Centennial Committee offered $5000 for an alive "hairy man". Per Vancouver Sun - "Wanted: Sasquatch-$5000 Reward" 1957. This might have been when Dahinden did his first expedition as well. At this time Burns affirmed that sasquatch were believed by the Salish to be their descendants. Per Vancouver Sun "Nothing Monstrous About Sasquatch, Says Their Pal" 1957.

It was only now that William Roe stepped forward with his claim of a eyewitness sighting of sasquatch giving it the modern description of being ape-like. Per John Green in both "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968 and "The Best of Sasquatch Bigfoot" 04. Roe claimed that the sighting occurred in 1955 though, while he was hiking. Roe's account is around, I think that Coleman has a description of in the book "Bigfoot!" ( I don't know the year of that one). Funny thing is Roe is a bit of an unknown. Green was mailed a sworn statement purportedly from Roe or a friend of Roe's but he never interviewed him and no one ever visited the sight where Roe claimed to have had the sighting. Per Green "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968. Nor could Green find anyone to whom Roe had told his story to prior the the 1957 publicity stunt. Again, Green "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968.

That's the origin of the original sasquatch people and the modern iteration as I understand it. I welcome additional information.

This is the earliest account I know of by far.

http://bigfoot-lives.com/html/e_walker.html

Spokanes are Salish peoples. 1840.

I think the description he gives dove tails well with what we associate with the modern myth. Giant, nocturnal, stench, big foot prints, etc.

Edited January 7, 2016 by norseman

[Bodhi]

 

Norse,

The earliest accounts from the Salish come from the Fraser Valley in B.C.in the 1920's as collected by John W. Fraser. He was the one who took the Halkomelem language/word of the Coast Salish People and anglicized it into sasquatch. As per Suttles', Coast Salish Essays in 1974. Burns was an "Indian agent" and teacher who worked on the Chelhalis Indian Reserve near Harrison Hot Springs. He started to collect the stories told to him by friends and after three years of he was allowed to talk to eyewitnesses among the tribe. As per J.W. Burns' interview/article in, "Introducing B.C.'s Hairy Giants" in Macleans April 1, 1929 & reprinted by John Green in "The Sasquatch File" 1973.

Those witnesses described sasquatches as men. In fact John Green's explains that the first reports described sasquatch as giant Indians with clothes, fire, weapons and living in villages. They were called hairy giants but it was understood that the phrase meant the they had long hair on their heads. As per John Green, "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968.

From what I've read the "modern" sasquatch started in 1957 when B.C. released funding for the celebration of the B.C. centennial and Harrison Hot Springs asked for asked $600 for a sasquatch hunt as a publicity stunt. This is where John Green steps in as a figure in sasquatch lore. Per his book "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968. The stunt gained all sorts of advertising and promotion as news papers around the world ran the story. Per the Vancouver Sun "Let's Not Forget the Sasquatchewan Trade" 1957. The B.C. Centennial Committee offered $5000 for an alive "hairy man". Per Vancouver Sun - "Wanted: Sasquatch-$5000 Reward" 1957. This might have been when Dahinden did his first expedition as well. At this time Burns affirmed that sasquatch were believed by the Salish to be their descendants. Per Vancouver Sun "Nothing Monstrous About Sasquatch, Says Their Pal" 1957.

It was only now that William Roe stepped forward with his claim of a eyewitness sighting of sasquatch giving it the modern description of being ape-like. Per John Green in both "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968 and "The Best of Sasquatch Bigfoot" 04. Roe claimed that the sighting occurred in 1955 though, while he was hiking. Roe's account is around, I think that Coleman has a description of in the book "Bigfoot!" ( I don't know the year of that one). Funny thing is Roe is a bit of an unknown. Green was mailed a sworn statement purportedly from Roe or a friend of Roe's but he never interviewed him and no one ever visited the sight where Roe claimed to have had the sighting. Per Green "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968. Nor could Green find anyone to whom Roe had told his story to prior the the 1957 publicity stunt. Again, Green "On the Track of the Sasquatch" 1968.

That's the origin of the original sasquatch people and the modern iteration as I understand it. I welcome additional information.

This is the earliest account I know of by far.

http://bigfoot-lives.com/html/e_walker.html

Spokanes are Salish peoples. 1840.

I think the description he gives dove tails well with what we associate with the modern myth. Giant, nocturnal, stench, big foot prints, etc.

 

I'll look up the Peter Bryne's book and look for his footnotes. Thanks Norse!!