There were giants in the lands around Cumorah during the Jaredite era, not just in animal form like the local elephants and mammoths that grazed in western New York, but men as well. A number of huge skeletons have been excavated in New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois, Virginia, west Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Minnesota, most of them measured seven and eight feet in height, although some reached upwards of nine feet, with a few even taller. It is in these very regions we find archaeological evidence of the residence of the ancient Jaredite civilization who the scriptures describe a “large and mighty Men.”
In Cayuga township along the Grand River, not far from Niagara Falls, two hundred skeletons of men of gigantic proportions were discovered piled one atop the other not more than five or six feet beneath the earth with a string of pearls around the neck of each one. From the Daily Telegraph (Toronto), August 23, 1871, we read:
“These skeletons are those of men of gigantic stature, some of them measuring nine feet, very few of them being less than seven, . . .and one of the skulls being examined completely covered the head of an ordinary person. These skeletons are supposed to belong to those of a race of people anterior to the Indians.” (Benott Crevier-Ancient American $41. p.9)
The bones of a huge race of men were also found in a cave in northern New York. The giants were found in a cave by workmen, about one-hundred-fifty in number, which were eventually taken out and displayed for the entire town of Northeast. A cave nearby was said to have contained at least as many more. Such a newsworthy discovery was written up in the Daily Victoria Standard, B.C., Canada, July 7, 1885.
Evidence that the Jaredite lived in New York—the lands of the Book of Mormon, is overwhelming, with the archeological record conforming perfectly with the saga of the Jaredites long sojourn in the promised land. Many more pieces of the puzzle can be found in the book The Lost Sheep of Ancient America.
- The Book of Mormon’s Golden Age of Mining
- America’s Ancient Horses & Elephants