Stunning Ancient Pygmy Race Graveyard Discovered in Tennessee

In 1823 almost all of the newspapers reported the story regarding the discovery at Tennessee graveyards containing coffins of small skeletons. The graves were about two feet in length, fourteen inches broad, and sixteen inches deep. It is believed they belong to a primordial “pygmy race” and their graveyards extend promiscuously throughout the farm of Mr. Lane, and in a large and closely attached burying-ground in the area, therefore, hundreds of them can be located throughout the locality.

In the article in the Anthropological Institute Journal writer mention: “Some considerable excitement and curiosity took place a few days since, near Hillsboro, Coffee County, on James Brown’s farm. A man was plowing in a field which had been cultivated many years and plowed up a man’s skull and other bones. After making further examination they found that there were about six acres in the graveyard. They were buried in a sitting or standing position. The bones show that they were a dwarf tribe of people, about three feet high. It is estimated that there were about 75,000 to 100,000 buried there. This shows that this country was inhabited hundreds of years ago.”

The skeletons in these graves belonged to human beings and were so much rotted that they could not be removed without being broken to pieces or disintegrating to dust. In one of the graves, the skeleton lay on its back, with its feet pulled up, in order to raise the knees about four inches above the bottom of the grave; the head was additionally so raised as to cause the jaw to lie upon the breast. This‘ skeleton, carefully measured as it lay, was observed to be, from slightly underneath the lower leg joints to the highest point of the skull, two feet ten inches, offering an appropriate leniency for the twisting of the legs and the slant of the head.

This ancient burial ground had a vast proportions and there was, for example, another grave of a larger size and of an alternate shape, being developed after the way of a coffin, fourteen inches wide at the head, twenty-two at the elbow, and ten at the foot; the sides and ends were of flag-stones, the same as those of the small graves. In this grave lay a skeleton five foot, five inches in length, the head to the west and the feet toward the east.

The skeleton inside this coffin was very carefully examined. The skull was excellent, apart from a fracture on the right cheek-bone. The head seemed to be larger, its mouth was broad open and included a complete set of teeth, the arms rest along the side, the ribs were broad and flat way more than double the size of the ones from the Pigmies. From the size and shape of the bones, it was evident that they belong to another tribe from the skeletons of the smaller graves.

Since most of the specimens of the skeletons from these graves were sent to be examined in Nashville, there were various opinions from lot of people, as to the maturity or infancy of the smaller skeletons. The most interesting one seemed to be that these skeletons belonged to adult persons of small size, and also that some of the bones found were those of animals.

This massive pygmy graveyard at present is positioned in Nashville with approximately 30,000 interned there. From the skeletons discovered there implies that seemed to be, in ancient times, a race of people whose height was from two feet ten to three feet.