194: French Giants

First let's look at a newspaper article from the NZH in 1892.

GIANT SKELETONS FOUND IN A CAVE. NEW ZEALAND HERALD, VOLUME XXIX, ISSUE 8890, 28 MAY 1892, PAGE 2 (SUPPLEMENT)

GIANT SKELETONS FOUND IN A CAVE.

Rome, April 27.—Legal proceedings are in progress over some grottoes near the Mediterranean coast, not far from Nice, which are remarkable for the prehistoric remains found in them. At present three skeletons found there are figuring in the law courts. One is that of a man whose estimated height was seven feet nine inches. The head of the skeleton is missing. Another is the skeleton of a woman, six feet three inches tall, and the third is that of a youth. These, added to previous discoveries, make seven skeletons of prehistoric people unearthed up to the present time in the caves around Nice. The Italian Government has not attempted to exercise any rights in the matter. Riviere discovered the skeletons of one man and two children, which were some twenty-nine feet (8.8m) below the surface of the caves and were surrounded by undoubted paleolithic implements bedded in compact limestone. The caves have already proved the richest in prehistoric remains yet known, and the pending proceedings are consequently very interesting.

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What do they mean by legal proceedings? Was there a dispute over who owned them? And 8.8m deep? Thats some dig. We examined all the caves around nice by reports and photos looking for habitable type caves. Only two were likely candidates.

1. Grotte de la Salpêtrière: This cave was excavated staring form 1872 so seems a likely candidate. You can see the floor has been dug over many times.

2. Grotte du Lazaret: Lazaret however seems to be the one. It has been excavated over the long period of time, is deeper and more sheltered and defendable than Grotte de la Salpêtrière.

Clockwise: Entrance. With walkway. From walkway. Dig team on floor. Dig team from entrance. Artist impression of same view with shelter. Representation of skin shelter. Artists impression from rear of cave.

Lazaret Cave is located on the French Mediterranean coast, in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), on the western slope of Mount Boron. It is a vast cavity of some 40 m long and 15 m wide, with a ceiling height of 15 m. The archaeological sequence (stratigraphic complex) is about 5m thick, and is constituted by a succession of gravel with blocks in a red clay siltmatrix. Further excavations conducted by Octobon between 1950 and 1965, and by de Lumley since 1967, have yielded ten hominid remains as-signed to pre-Neanderthals (de Lumley, 1973), associated with abundant lithic artifacts and faunal remains. Close to the mouth of the cave and along one wall were found Acheulean stone tools along with fragments of animal bone surrounding two circular charcoal concentrations which likely served as hearths. This occupation area measures 11 by 3.5 m (36 by 11 ft) and was delimited by the cave wall on three sides and on the fourth by a sinuous line of large stones. It is these which have been interpreted as having served as packing stones that could have been used to support the poles of an animal skin tent pitched against the cave wall. No evidence of the organic tent poles or tent itself would have survived but stone tool flakes and animal bone appear to spill outwards from between the stones at two points which may represent entrances to the conjectured shelter. You can see from this hypothesis without any evidence to support it that various drawings shown here, now convince people that it once existed. And something like it may have.

Now back to the news item from 1892. The description does not seem in any way inflated. The adult male was nearly 8' and his head was missing, the women still tall, but much shorter than the male as many women are, and a child. Yet there is no current evidence of any remains. Only the Castelnau giant bone fragments and our femur shaft remain as any justifiable photographical evidence of what so many around the world believe did once exist, not just as individuals, but as tribes or sub-races.