Worcester County, Tremendous Stature
THESE INDIANS WERE GIANT
Gigantic skeletons of prehistoric Indiana nearly eight feet tall have been, discovered along the banks of the Choptank River, State of Maryland, by employees of the Maryland Academy of Science. The remains will be placed on public exhibition early, in the fall.
The collection comprises eight skeletons, of which some are women and children. They are not all completed but all the larger bones have been found and there is at least one complete skeleton’ of an adult man The excavations were in progress for months, and the discovery is considered one of the most important in Maryland
in a number of years. The remains are believed to be at least 1000 years old. The formation of the ground above arid the
location of t,h« cravps mvfis avwtt o-trirtannn of this. During the excavations the remains of the camps of later Indians were
revealed. These consisted of oyster shell heaps, charred and burned earth, and fragments of cooking utensils. These discoveries were made fully ten; feet above the graves which contained the gigantic skeletons. There have been other discoveries in Maryland of remains of men of tremen dous stature. A skeleton’ was discovered at Ocean City several years ago which
measured a fraction over 7 feet 6 inches.
This skeleton was interred in a regular burying ground and beads manufactured by white men were found upon it. The dead Indian was propably one of the tribes mentioned by Captain John Smith, who
in, July, 1608, made a voyage of exploration of the Chesapeke Bay.’
At the point on the Choptank where the remains were found there are steep shelving cliffs of sand and gravel that extendto the water’s edge. Beneath the bank is a layer of marl. The graves are in the sand a few feet above the hard marl, and have deposits of between twenty and thirty feet of sand and gravel above them.’. A peculiar feature of the discovery is the charred state of the bones of the women and children. Thise of the men are un
and children. Those fo the’ men are un that the ancient Indians cremated the bo dies of all except their warriors. The wet resting place of the bones for so many centuries has made them very soft and fragile, and it was with the greatest difficulty that they were removed.
The Albury Banner and Wodonga Express (NSW : 1860 – 1938) Fri 27 Oct 1905 Page 35 These Indians were Giants.