Giants From the Dreamtime the Yowie In Myth And Reality

Hong Kong 1934

Gigantopithecus-South China Giant

Gigantopithecus, the "South China Giant", originally identified from six large fossil teeth found in a Hong Kong Chinese chemist's shop by Dutch Palaeontologist Ralph von Koenigswald in 1934, does appear to fit the description of the Sasquatch.

Fossil jaws and teeth of Gigantopithecus unearthed in China since von Koenigswald's initial discovery show these monster-apes subsisted on seeds, berries and other herbivorous food, although there must have been meat-eating forms, as suggested by the Australian Aboriginal traditions concerning the habits of the giant hominids [of Gigantopithecus appearance] to follow.

The Gigantopithecines lived in a warm climate during the Pliocene-Pleistocene period, supposedly becoming extinct by half a million years ago. Fossilised footprints thought to be those of the Gigantopithecus have been found in China and Java. With their opposable big toe they are distinct from other, more man-like giant fossil footprints found in Australia, as will be shown. If indeed Gigantopithecus footprints, they are certain evidence of the presence of these monsters in ice-age Australia.

During the last ice-age, sea levels were much lower than they are today, and the continental land masses were considerably different to their present-day outlines. Asia was joined to the Americas by a land-bridge through what is now the Bering Strait, while the present-day islands of south-east Asia formed a vast extension of the Asian continent southward to Indonesia and as I will argue later, in Chapter Four, this 'bridge' extended to New Guinea-Australia, with Tasmania then part of the Australian mainland.

It will also be argued later in this book that a land-bridge existed at this time between New Guinea and New Zealand.

It was across the former Asia-Australia land-bridge that Gigantopithecus, and also Meganthropus, the equally monstrous "Giant Java Man", were able to move southward, including other, smaller hominids, such as Homo erectus.

Scientific dogma declares that Pleistocene Australia was never joined to the great south-east Asian land shelf. And likewise, a land extension between New Guinea and New Zealand is equally unthinkable.

Yet, for giant races like Meganthropus, and also Gigantopithecus, or even smaller hominids such as Homo erectus to have entered Australia during the Pleistocene , a land-bridge would have been necessary. Otherwise, these primitive creatures, incapable as they would have been of constructing even the crudest water craft, could never have reached our continent.

This can also be said of the unknown makers of the giant and modern human-size fossil footprints found in 3 million year old volcanic ash deposits in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales and elsewhere, which we shall study later.

Giant races in the Pleistocene period or before is an established scientific fact. There exists a school of thought among anthropologists interested in the 'relict hominid' mystery, who theorise that, while the Yeti/Almastis/Sasquatch might have branched off as later-day forms of Gigantopithecus; Meganthropus, having become a stone tool-making meat-eater, evolved into the smaller Homo erectus, or "Java Man", who in turn evolved into modern humans.

I also argue that, while it would have been possible for giant races to enter Australia, some could have evolved here from smaller hominid forms, and it is possible that once established here, Homo erectus could have produced a giant form through genetic mutation.

Giant tool-making ape-men existing contemporaneously with more primitive giant manbeasts are a prominent theme of Aboriginal dream-time myth and legend. As with the eastern Australian Yowie, these too had many names. I have said that the early Aborigines feared the Yowies as very dangerous creatures, avoiding them as much as possible. Sometimes however, the "hairy man" became a problem, attacking Aboriginal camps, forcing the tribespeople to defend themselves; as in the case of the Turramulli giants of Cape York, in Queensland's far north.