Bigfoot could be a descendant of Paranthropus

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I know I’ve gone over some of this before, but all this talk about the Patterson-Gimlim footage for the 40th anniversary seems to be stirring up a need to revisit it. It seems rather unbelievable to me that I’m hearing again that only “male gorillas have sagittal crests” and this is being used as a reason to discount the Patterson Bigfoot footage. Paranthropus, my fossil candidate choice for Bigfoot, had sagittal crests in both genders.

Paranthropus sp. image courtesy of skullsunlimited.com

I take the stance that Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Oh-Mah, whatever you wish to call the classic Neo-Giants of the Pacific Northwest, do exist, and are reportedly upright, hairy, 6 feet to 8.5 feet tall hominoids.

You’ve heard a lot about Gigantopithecus, but what of the other major fossil choice, Paranthropus, I say?

The general scientific agreement is that Gigantopithecus specimens were in the range of about 10 feet tall in fully grown adults. Some of the scholars most linked to Gigantopithecus even have interpretations that assume Gigantopithecus was not bipedal.

Other than mandibles and over a thousand teeth, no other bones of Gigantopithecus have been found. Despite this, the late Grover Krantz and others have constantly said that Gigantopithecus is the best fossil candidate for Sasquatch. But one major fossil candidate is often overlooked by the Krantz camp: Paranthropus.

This other favored fossil affinity for Bigfoot was proposed in 1971 by Gordon Strasenburgh, who wrote of his theory in scientific journals, self-published booklets, and through correspondence with colleagues. Strasenburgh thought Bigfoot would be found to be related to Paranthropus robustus and suggested that the name Paranthropus eldurrelli be used for the Bigfoot of the Pacific Northwest.

Paranthropus is a fossil hominid genus initially assigned by Robert Broom to a robust form of australopithecine found at Kromdraai and Swartkrans in South Africa. One of the most famous Paranthropus species is boisei, discovered by Mary Leakey in 1959 at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. It is known for its massive jaw muscles and huge back teeth the size of quarters that inspired the nickname “Nutcracker Man.”

The evidence gathered to date suggests the Neo-Giants could very well be Paranthropus. In Sasquatch, as in primates that have large jaws and well-developed chewing muscles (e.g., gorillas and baboons), the skull’s parietal bones appears to continue upward at the midline to form a sagittal crest. The early hominid fossil evidence shows that Paranthropus of both genders exhibited a sagittal crest–a feature that provides a very strong link to the male and female unknown hairy Neo-Giants seen today.

In Southeast Asia, during the 1940s, paleoanthropologists Franz Weidenreich and Ralph von Koenigswald found evidence, generally ignored by anthropologists, that Gigantopithecus (the very strong and enormous anthropoid ape), Meganthropus palaeojavanicus (the great man of ancient Java, known today as Paranthropus), and two different species or subspecies of ** erectus (namely the so-called Java apeman and the Peking man), all lived at the same time.

Then in 1996, Carl C. Swisher III of the Berkeley Geochronology Center found new data indicating that ** erectus had indeed lived in Java at the same time as ** sapiens, the modern human. Using new techniques to date fossils found at Solo River, Java, Swisher’s team concluded that the supposedly very much older species known as ** erectus had actually lived in Java as recently as 53,000 to 27,000 years ago. This was earth-shaking news to anthropologists who had assumed a much older date for ** erectus.

Also in 1996, researchers lead by Russell Ciochon and Vu The Long discussed the apparent co-occurrence of ** erectus and Gigantopithecus blacki in Tham Khuyen Cave, Vietnam. This giant ape was contemporaneous with archaic humans throughout its range from six million to 300,000 years ago. That is quite a long and successful span of coexistence, and Gigantopithecus must have been a formidable “neighbor”–a true giant on the landscape of the world with the little near-humans and humans - and now we know very small ** floresiensis too - like so many troublesome distant cousins breeding furiously and taking up living space.

So this is what we know. Apes, near-humans, humans, and little near-humans lived at the same time, probably just as they continue to today (even though anthropology does not acknowledge as much yet).

And gorillas and various other great apes, and such fossil species as Paranthropus show sagittal crests in females as well as males. Krantz’s reconstruction of Gigantopithecus with a sagittal crest is only logical based on the massive mandibles that have been discovered, which demonstrates evidence of heavy chewing probably taking place. Also Krantz, no doubt, added them too because he considered the Sasquatch his living model. But, of course, we don’t really know if Gigantopithecus had sagittal crests. We do, however, clearly know that Paranthropus did have the crests, as we have fossils with them on the top of their skulls.

Among various problems I have with Gigantopithecus, therefore, is the very large size of this ape, which would have put them at the extreme end of any Bigfoot heights recorded in sightings (closer to Mark Hall’s True Giants). Most people studying these Bigfoot would consider valid only more reasonable heights. Paranthropus, at between 5.5 and 7.5 feet, with known sagittal crests, I sense, is a more plausible fossil candidate for the classic PNW Bigfoot, the Neo-Giants. The case is straightforward for me. It seems unfortunate that people have spent a lot of time studying the few bones of Gigantopithecus as the “celebrity big fossil ape,” when more attention might be usefully devoted examining Paranthropus.

For those interested in the question of Paranthropus, I recommend an article:

Clarke, Ronald J. “The Genus Paranthropus: What’s in a Name?” in W. E. Meikle, F. C. Howell, and N. G. Jablonski (eds) Contemporary Issues in Human Evolution (San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences, 1996) Memoir 21, pages 93-104.

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/yes-sagittal/

[fozzie 41]

Definitely a man in a gorilla suit.

[Ms. Squirrel 11]

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Definitely a man in a gorilla suit.

For anyone interested in investigating the possibility that this film might depict a man in a suit, I recommend watching the video several times, finger depressing the pause button in various spots along the progression so as to examine the gait, musculature, limb proportions, and the distribution of hair — all of which, to my trained eye, appear to be non-human and which taken together exclude the possibility of a person in costume.

~ Noah David Henson

http://www.anomalymagazine.com/2009/03/02/...lm-an-analysis/

[pedroh 21]

what about manbearpig?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

what about manbearpig?

Not even

[Peikko 1,575]

Do you believe in Nessie too?

[fozzie 41]

The last bit is a comparrison of the footage against a man in costume, difference is that one is great costume designed to fool exoerts and the other is poor halloween costume.

[Ban Hammer 13,360]

Do you believe in Nessie too?

[pedroh 21]

[Ms. Squirrel 11]

Close!

[pedroh 21]

it's half man half bear half pig, im being super serial

[Peikko 1,575]

Do you believe in Nessie too?

[justashooter 430]

sasquatch, yeti, goblin, dwarf, giant, troll, elf, etc: they occur in legend around the golbe. are these legendary creatures primitive man's way of categorising humans born outside the norm for our shape and stature, or a cultural recollection of a time in which early man lived in competition with other distinctly seperate species?

hard to say. i wasn't there.

[fozzie 41]

Do you believe in Nessie too?

Its a man in a nessie suit