Grover Krantz

Gordon S. "Grover" Krantz (November 5, 1931 – February 14, 2002) was a professor of physical anthropology at Washington State University, perhaps most famous as one of the few academics to not only research Bigfoot but also to express his belief in its existence.

Biography

Krantz was born in Salt Lake City. He was raised in Rockford, Illinois until the age of 10, when his family relocated back to Utah. In 1955 Krantz earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Utah, and in 1958 he would earn a Master’s degree from the University of California. Finally, Krantz earned a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1971. He taught at Washington State University from 1968 until his retirement in 1998.

Krantz’s specialty as a researcher and teacher included all aspects of human evolution, but he was best known outside of academia as the first serious academic to devote his professional energies to the scientific study of bigfoot. His studies of bigfoot (which he called "Sasquatch," after the purported native term) led him to theorize that this was an actual creature; specifically, a surviving population of gigantopithecines. He was a defender of the authenticity of the Patterson-Gimlin film and a variety of casts collected by Paul Freeman and Ivan Marx.

Krantz was also drawn into the Kennewick Man controversy, arguing both in academia and in court that direct lineage to extant human populations could not be demonstrated.

Krantz died in 2002 from pancreatic cancer in his Port Angeles, Washington home. At his request, there was no funeral. Instead, his body was shipped to the University of Tennessee's body farm, where scientists study human decay rates to aid in forensic investigations.

In 2003, his skeleton arrived at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History and was laid in its final resting place in a green cabinet, alongside the bones of his three favorite wolfhounds, as was his last request (See "Epilogue" by Dave Hunt of the Smithsonian in Only A Dog).

Selected bibliography

Among his works on sasquatch are:

• The Scientist Looks at the Sasquatch (Moscow: University Press of Idaho, 1977, with anthropologist Roderick Sprague)
• The Scientist Looks at the Sasquatch II (Moscow: University Press of Idaho, 1979, also with Roderick Sprague)
• The Sasquatch and Other Unknown Hominoids (Calgary: Western Publishing, 1984, with archaeologist Vladimir Markotic)
• Bigfoot Sasquatch Evidence (Hancock House, 1999 ISBN 0-88839-447-0)
• Several scholarly papers, published in Northwest Anthropological Research Notes

Non-sasquatch works include:

• Climatic Races and Descent Groups (1980 ISBN 0-8158-0390-7)
• The Antiquity of Race (1981, 1994, 1998)
• The Process of Human Evolution (1982, 1995, ISBN 0-87073-347-8)
• Geographical Development of European Languages (1988, ISBN 0-8204-0800-X)
• Only A Dog -- One of America's best known anthropologists contemplates his beloved wolfhound (re-published 2008, ISBN 978-988-17324-1-5)

References

External links