It’s the 21st century, but conspiracy theories about a “long-lost race of giants” still live strong (honestly, you wouldn’t believe how many messages we receive about it). Rumors about one such colossus have recently emerged in South America where it’s said a huge humanoid skeleton has been uncovered. However, armchair archaeologists should take this wild claim with a giant-sized pinch of salt.
In a new study, anthropologist Nicholas Landol looks into the claim that archaeologists recently found the skeleton of a giant in a quiet Ecuadorian village. While it’s true an old skeleton was recovered here, Landol concludes that estimates of the individual’s height have been grossly overblown.
The so-called “Julcuy giant” was unearthed in early 2019 by geologist Theofilos Toulkeridis and archaeologist Florencio Delgado near the village of Julcuy in Ecuador’s Manabí province.
It’s estimated the individual lived at some point during the Manteño-Huancavilca culture (1200 to 1600 CE). Much of the physical remains had been lost, but the duo managed to recover the individual’s left ulna, left radius, both of their humeri, both femurs, and fragmented parts of their lower leg bones.
Later that year, a documentary series Code of the Wild aired an episode called “Lost Race of Giants,” in which Delgado and Toulkeridis were interviewed about their discovery.
The hosts claimed that the individual stood approximately 2.1 meters (7 feet) tall when alive, which would have been remarkably tall for a person over five millennia ago. They go on to interview local Indigenous Salasaca people who recite their oral tradition of cannibalistic giants.
However, there is good reason to suspect the height estimation in the 2019 documentary was massively exaggerated. Landol spoke to Delgado, the archaeologist who made the discovery, who explained the bones were measured using a “rudimentary technique” involving only a tape measure.
“Given the amount of disarticulation an individual’s remains can experience via taphonomic processes, such a technique can prove problematic,” writes Landol.
The documentary showed an on-screen graphic that suggest the femur was almost 61 centimeters (24 inches) long, much longer than the average male’s femur of less than 45 centimeters (17.7 inches). However, this appears to have been an assumption based on the individual’s alleged height, because Delgado confirmed they never made any such measurement of the femur.
In a terrible stroke of bad luck, most of the Julcuy individual’s remains were destroyed and displaced during the 2023 rainy season, meaning a full-blown scientific investigation of the bones is no longer possible. Fortunately, the individual’s left femur was recovered, completely intact except for a few scratches.
A reevaluation of the leg bone suggests it was a maximum length of 40 centimeters (15.7 inch), which is slightly shorter than the average man.
Based on the bone length, the new report concludes that the Julcuy individual likely stood between 153.34 centimeters and 162.37 centimeters (5 feet to 5 feet 4 inches) while alive – not quite a giant. In fact, that’s pretty much the height you’d expect from an Indigenous American man born at least 400 years ago.
The study is published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.
Dr. Thomas Hughes is a UK-based scientist and science communicator who makes complex topics accessible to readers. His articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to cutting-edge research.
