Did giant humans once roam the United States?

Unusual human remains found in Nevada, believed by many to belong to a tribe of giants that settled in the US and fought against Native Americans. 

 The mystery of the red-haired giants found in Lovelock Cave  (photo credit: Ancient Citizens)
The mystery of the red-haired giants found in Lovelock Cave
(photo credit: Ancient Citizens)

There is a certain debate among scholars regarding the truthfulness of the claims made about the "Giants of Lovelock." During the initial excavations, remains of two red-haired giants were reported. One was a female measuring 1.98 m. in height, and the other was a male measuring over 2.44 m.

However, further investigation did not find any evidence to support such claims. In Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins's book, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, she does not mention giants but refers to what is called barbarians. 

Research conducted at the University of Nevada suggests that one of the "giants" found was actually only 1.83 m. tall, not the claimed 2.44 m.

A short time after the second excavation in 1931, an article published in the local newspaper, Nevada Review-Miner, claimed that two giant skeletons were discovered in the dry lakebed near Lovelock, with heights of 2.60 m. and 3 m., and they had been buried in a similar manner to the way it was done in ancient Egypt. Despite all this sounding absurd, the legend of these strange people spread throughout the Americas. 

For example, in the 16th century, a Spanish conquistador named Pedro Cieza de León documented an ancient Peruvian story about the origin of the giants. In his writings, de León wrote that the figures came by sea on rafts made of reeds, like large boats, and that some of the men were so tall that an average man would only go as high as their knees. Furthermore, further north in the Andean mountains, between Peru and Bolivia, elongated skulls were found. It is said that the remains are about 3,000 years old and much larger than those of regular humans. Some of them also had red hair.

The skeptics also argue that the chemical staining done on the soil after burial is a plausible reason for the red hair found on the remains instead of black hair, like most Native Americans in the region. They question how a supposedly strong race could have vanished from the world.

The Si-Te-Cah: The giants of Paiute myth

The Paiute tribes of the region apparently have the answer to this question. According to their mythology, the "Si-Te-Cah," as they call them, waged a war against them and other neighboring tribes, causing terror and destruction. After years of fighting, the tribes united against this formidable enemy.

The tribes eventually drove the last remaining giants out and they sought refuge inside Lovelock Cave. The tribes seized the opportunity and set fire to the cave entrance, suffocating and burning alive the few Si-Te-Cah who remained. 

Astonishingly, evidence of an extreme fire near the cave entrance was found during the initial discoveries in 1911, as reported by the History Channel.

Even though these giants may sound like products of a fertile imagination, it is difficult to ignore this finding and not consider that perhaps the Paiute know more than we thought.