People have been sharing stories about giants for thousands of years, from the Cyclops of Greek mythology to the Biblical Goliath. But are these just tall tales, or have giant humans really walked this earth?
If you consider an almost 3 meter tall human to be a giant, then yes. Robert Wadlow, the tallest person ever recorded, grew to 2.72 meters before dying in 1940 at the age of 22. Guinness World Records.
Wadlow was well above the current American average male height of about 5 feet, 9 inches (1.75 m) and even taller than some interpretations of the Biblical descriptions of Goliath. Yet there was nothing magical about Wadlow. Like most true giants, his stature was the result of a medical condition.
“The majority of [giant] patients have a growth hormone problem,” Marta Korbonitsa professor of endocrinology at Queen Mary University of London told LiveScience. “That’s what Robert Wadlow had.”
Korbonits noted that the main cause of gigantism is increased levels of a growth hormone produced by the pituitary gland in the brain. Usually these high levels are caused by a benign tumor. One reason we’re unlikely to see someone as big as Wadlow again is because doctors can now remove the tumor and using drugs to stop the growth, because gigantism and the tumor endanger one’s health.
Related: Why don’t we have many giant animals anymore?
Other conditions can cause people to be unusually tall. These include Marfan syndrome, a genetic condition that causes bones to grow longer, Korbonits explained.
However, some people grow to extreme heights without a known medical condition; they include the former tallest man in the world, Bao Xishun, who is 2.36 m tall – a giant without gigantism. They likely have a range of genetic variants that predispose them to large stature, Korbonits said.
Although it is easier for researchers to study giants in modern times, there have probably always been extremely tall people. The oldest known case of gigantism comes from the alleged remains of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, who was approximately 1.87 meters tall, while Korbonits’ research has discovered that many real-life Irish giants inherited a gene mutation from a person who lived 2,500 years ago.
“We’ve had these diseases since humanity has existed, so there’s no reason why you wouldn’t have had these giants in ancient Egypt or any other time in human history,” Korbonits said.
Genetics is combined with environmental factors, such as nutrition in early life determine height, with populations often increasing over time as civilization progresses. However, it is not always a linear trend.
Pavel Grasgrubera researcher at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, told LiveScience that some male skeletons from the late phase of the mammoth-hunting Gravettian culture, from about 29,000 years ago, are notable for their extraordinary length and even helped to myths about giants inspire. The tallest of these seven skeletons, excavated around the turn of the century in the Grimaldi cave system in Italy, is estimated to have stood 6 feet, 5 inches (1.96 m).
“Remember that at the time these skeletons were found, the standard for male height in Europe was less than 170 cm. [5 feet, 7 inches]!’, Grasgruber said in an email. “No wonder these people seemed ‘giants’ to the scientists of the time.”
Researchers do not know whether the tall remains were representative of the Gravettian population. Yet Grasgruber noted that tall men were typical of early Paleolithic populations in France and the historic region of Moravia (modern-day Czech Republic), reaching heights that modern industrial countries did not reach until the mid-20th century.
“The reason for this good physical condition of the early Paleolithic hunters was the low population density and the abundance of game in the form of mammoths and other large mammals,” Grasgruber said.