The ten Anomalous Giants discussed in this issue are a few examples of a diverse, worldwide, settlement phenomenon. More than two hundred sites with their characteristic, extensive, patchy or dispersed, low-occupation-density behaviour have been identified across five continents and sixty cultures. Many more may exist, especially in the Americas, Africa, and possibly South Asia. Their global distribution, their recurrence over some seven thousand years across differing environments, the variability of their durations, population mobility behaviours, and a curious absence of some material and organizational properties to manage large populations, demonstrate their diversity and distinctiveness. Regionally, they are giant versions of local settlement traditions. On a global scale they appear to have developed in conjunction with regional population increase and ceased when large compact settlements began to develop in their regions.