Vanished Giants

Vanished Giants
Author: Anthony J. Stuart
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2021-01-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 022643298X

Featuring numerous illustrations, this book explores the many lessons to be learned from Pleistocene megafauna, including the role of humans in their extinction, their disappearance at the start of the Sixth Extinction, and what they might teach us about contemporary conservation crises. Long after the extinction of dinosaurs, when humans were still in the Stone Age, woolly rhinos, mammoths, mastodons, sabertooth cats, giant ground sloths, and many other spectacular large animals that are no longer with us roamed the Earth. These animals are regarded as “Pleistocene megafauna,” named for the geological era in which they lived—also known as the Ice Age. In Vanished Giants: The Lost World of the Ice Age, paleontologist Anthony J. Stuart explores the lives and environments of these animals, moving between six continents and several key islands. Stuart examines the animals themselves via what we’ve learned from fossil remains, and he describes the landscapes, climates, vegetation, ecological interactions, and other aspects of the animals’ existence. Illustrated throughout, Vanished Giants also offers a picture of the world as it was tens of thousands of years ago when these giants still existed. Unlike the case of the dinosaurs, there was no asteroid strike to blame for the end of their world. Instead, it appears that the giants of the Ice Age were driven to extinction by climate change, human activities—especially hunting—or both. Drawing on the latest evidence provided by radiocarbon dating, Stuart discusses these possibilities. The extinction of Ice Age megafauna can be seen as the beginning of the so-called Sixth Extinction, which is happening right now. This has important implications for understanding the likely fate of present-day animals in the face of contemporary climate change and vastly increasing human populations.

The Book of Giants

The Book of Giants
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-08
Genre: Folklore
ISBN: 9781933865676

Take a journey with the artist and writer Petar Meseldzija, who tells how he was allowed unparalleled access through the Invisible Curtain and into the land of giants. A year in the making, this book's sixteen paintings and nearly ninety drawings bring to life Petar's experiences on this journey and secrets uncovered, going back to ancient times. He shares stories of new discoveries that free giants from the murky abyss of myth and a forgotten past. Told in three stages, The Book of Giants includes the illustrated stories The Giants Are Coming, recounting a dynamic clash that lasted one hundred years; The Little Kingdom, where a giant befriends a nation of humans and becomes their adamant protector against ferocious invaders; The Northern Giants, who embrace the warrior spirit through countless battles; Giant Velles, the story of ignorance and how the strength of goodness perseveres; and The Great Forest, wherein the author discovers little creatures called the keppetz and relates his experiences spent with ogres while on his quest to meet the Golden One and to determine the purpose of his journey. Through the strength of his own power, he discovers his blessings, his limitations and finally his personal myth. Furthermore, you will discover why giants made a push into the underground, followed by their exodus and deliverance to a new land. You'll also learn why the myth of giants is still alive, why their time spent with humans remains elusive and why giants prefer to remain hidden in their world. Join Petar Meseldzija on his journey of discovery.

Giants in the Earth

Giants in the Earth
Author: Ole Edvart Rølvaag
Publisher:
Total Pages: 506
Release: 1927
Genre: Dakota Territory
ISBN:

A narrative of pioneer hardship and heroism on the boundless Dakota prairie, as a Norwegian-American immigrant family passed through Ellis Island and worked to eke out a living in America's midwest.

Giants, Fallen Angels, and the Return of the Nephilim

Giants, Fallen Angels, and the Return of the Nephilim
Author: Dennis Lindsay
Publisher: Destiny Image Publishers
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2018-08-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0768444187

Are you prepared for what is about to happen? Giants, Fallen Angels and the Return of the Nephilim will discuss Biblical prophecies of giants on the earth, the Last Days demonic plot of engineering genetic hybrids, and what all of it has to do with Israel and the Middle East. In this book, you will receive answers to these questions and more Have tribes of giants ever walked this Earth? Why are there massive and precise prehistoric megalithic structures throughout the world? Was early man a Neolithic Stone Age caveman or did he receive knowledge from other sources? Are aliens actually fallen angels? Who are the Nephilim, and are they returning to Earth? Discover how important these questions are, from both a personal and global perspective. Read this book and open your eyes to the dangers that await mankind, and humanitys only hope.

End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World's Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals

End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World's Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals
Author: Ross D E MacPhee
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0393249301

The fascinating lives and puzzling demise of some of the largest animals on earth. Until a few thousand years ago, creatures that could have been from a sci-fi thriller—including gorilla-sized lemurs, 500-pound birds, and crocodiles that weighed a ton or more—roamed the earth. These great beasts, or “megafauna,” lived on every habitable continent and on many islands. With a handful of exceptions, all are now gone. What caused the disappearance of these prehistoric behemoths? No one event can be pinpointed as a specific cause, but several factors may have played a role. Paleomammalogist Ross D. E. MacPhee explores them all, examining the leading extinction theories, weighing the evidence, and presenting his own conclusions. He shows how theories of human overhunting and catastrophic climate change fail to account for critical features of these extinctions, and how new thinking is needed to elucidate these mysterious losses. Along the way, we learn how time is determined in earth history; how DNA is used to explain the genomics and phylogenetic history of megafauna—and how synthetic biology and genetic engineering may be able to reintroduce these giants of the past. Until then, gorgeous four-color illustrations by Peter Schouten re-create these megabeasts here in vivid detail.

Are All the Giants Dead?

Are All the Giants Dead?
Author: Mary Norton
Publisher: Turtleback Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1997-04
Genre: Fairy tales
ISBN: 9780606131476

Finding himself in a land peopled with fairy tale characters, James attempts to help Princess Dulcibel who is destined to marry a toad after her ball falls into the well.

Once and Future Giants

Once and Future Giants
Author: Sharon Levy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2011-03-22
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0199831548

Until about 13,000 years ago, North America was home to a menagerie of massive mammals. Mammoths, camels, and lions walked the ground that has become Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles and foraged on the marsh land now buried beneath Chicago's streets. Then, just as the first humans reached the Americas, these Ice Age giants vanished forever. In Once and Future Giants, science writer Sharon Levy digs through the evidence surrounding Pleistocene large animal ("megafauna") extinction events worldwide, showing that understanding this history--and our part in it--is crucial for protecting the elephants, polar bears, and other great creatures at risk today. These surviving relatives of the Ice Age beasts now face the threat of another great die-off, as our species usurps the planet's last wild places while driving a warming trend more extreme than any in mammalian history. Deftly navigating competing theories and emerging evidence, Once and Future Giants examines the extent of human influence on megafauna extinctions past and present, and explores innovative conservation efforts around the globe. The key to modern-day conservation, Levy suggests, may lie fossilized right under our feet.

The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America

The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America
Author: Richard J. Dewhurst
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2013-12-17
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1591437520

A study of the substantial evidence for a former race of giants in North America and its 150-year suppression by the Smithsonian Institution • Shows how thousands of giant skeletons have been found, particularly in the Mississippi Valley, as well as the ruins of the giants’ cities • Explores 400 years of giant finds, including newspaper articles, first person accounts, state historical records, and illustrated field reports • Reveals the Stonehenge-era megalithic burial complex on Catalina Island with over 4,000 giant skeletons, including kings more than 9 feet tall • Includes more than 100 rare photographs and illustrations of the lost evidence Drawing on 400 years of newspaper articles and photos, first person accounts, state historical records, and illustrated field reports, Richard J. Dewhurst reveals not only that North America was once ruled by an advanced race of giants but also that the Smithsonian has been actively suppressing the physical evidence for nearly 150 years. He shows how thousands of giant skeletons have been unearthed at Mound Builder sites across the continent, only to disappear from the historical record. He examines other concealed giant discoveries, such as the giant mummies found in Spirit Cave, Nevada, wrapped in fine textiles and dating to 8000 BCE; the hundreds of red-haired bog mummies found at sinkhole “cenotes” on the west coast of Florida and dating to 7500 BCE; and the ruins of the giants’ cities with populations in excess of 100,000 in Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Louisiana. Dewhurst shows how this suppression began shortly after the Civil War and transformed into an outright cover-up in 1879 when Major John Wesley Powell was appointed Smithsonian director, launching a strict pro-evolution, pro-Manifest Destiny agenda. He also reveals the 1920s’ discovery on Catalina Island of a megalithic burial complex with 6,000 years of continuous burials and over 4,000 skeletons, including a succession of kings and queens, some more than 9 feet tall--the evidence for which is hidden in the restricted-access evidence rooms at the Smithsonian.

The Giants of Stonehenge and Ancient Britain

The Giants of Stonehenge and Ancient Britain
Author: Hugh Newman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2022-10-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781948803540

Did giants really exist in the British Isles? Do the legends of them building Stonehenge hold any reality? Why does the establishment deny they ever existed? Hugh Newman and Jim Vieira, best selling authors of Giants On Record: America's Hidden History, Secrets in the Mounds and the Smithsonian Files (2015), and stars of History Channel's Search for the Lost Giants, investigate these claims and take a deep dive into obscure newspaper accounts, antiquarian diaries, archaeological reports, local history records, newly-translated ancient texts, academic papers, new scientific reports and written evidence from hundreds of sources going back over a 4,000-year period to uncover the truth. Over 250 accounts of the remains of giant human skeletons ranging from 7 feet to 21 feet have been found in the archaeological and historical record, often measured and commented on by famous scientists, scholars and writers at the time. A wealth of folklore from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland talks about sophisticated cultures of giants with supernatural powers and advanced technology who had control over thunder and lightning, as witnessed when their tombs were disturbed by later generations. They were often high kings and queens who were master geomancers, surveyors, architects and astronomers who ruled from their mountaintop fortresses--whilst others were cannibals with violent tendencies who enjoyed throwing gigantic rocks across the landscape! The authors take a close look at these age-old stories and the remarkable skeletal discoveries to reveal for the first time an important lost chapter of British history. Includes an 8-page color section.

Last of the Giants

Last of the Giants
Author: Jeff Campbell
Publisher: Zest Books ™
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2019-08-01
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 154158189X

Today, an ancient world is vanishing right before our eyes: the age of giant animals. Over 40,000 years ago, the earth was ruled by megafauna: mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed tigers and giant sloths. Of course, those creatures no longer exist, and there is only one likely reason for that: the evolution and arrival of the earth's only tool-wielding hunter, the wildly adaptive, comparatively pint-sized human species. Many more of the world's biggest and baddest creatures—including the black rhino, the dodo, giant tortoises, and the great auk—have vanished since our world became truly global. Last of the Giants chronicles those giant animals and apex predators pushed to extinction in the modern era. The book also highlights those giant species that remain—even though many barely survive, living in such low numbers that they are on the brink of leaving this world within the next few decades. However, there is hope, for many endangered species can still be saved. As it profiles each extinct and endangered animal, Last of the Giants focuses on the conservation efforts that are trying to preserve the world's remaining charismatic species before they are lost forever.