Contra Costa – 7 Feet 4 Inches Tall
SKELETON OF GIANT INDIAN IS FOUND
Seven Feet Four Inches Was the Height of Member of Extinct Race Whose Bones Were Dug Up by California Scientist
San Francisco, Cal – Up to about 300 years ago, a giant race of Indians inhabited the coast regions of California. Remains of these have been discovered in the islands of the Santa Barbara channel. To William Altmann, assistant curator of the Golden Gate Park Memorial museum, belongs the honor of discovering one of the tallest and best-preserved skeletons of this extinct tribe.
Altmann utilized his vacation in excavating an old Indian burial mound in the nursery of Thomas S. Dunne, two miles from Concord, in Contra Costa County. The giant skeleton was found ten feet from the surface, and around it were a large number of mortars and pestles, charm stones, and obsidian arrowheads.
The skeleton has not yet been mounted, but the bones were assembled on a table in the curator’s office and placed on private exhibition. The bones are in good state of preservation, being hard and firm, although brown with age. Two or three of the vertebrae are missing, and the skull is broken into three parts. The skeleton measures seven feet four inches. The tibia is seventeen inches in length.
- East Oregonian E.O., August 10, 1912, EVENING EDITION, Page PAGE FIVE, Image 5