Norman Rose plays an archaeologist, Ralph Bell plays another one, albeit with a few less scruples.

Bell's character comes to his old friend and fellow researcher with some startling news. They believed in their earlier days they had evidence that a huge species of prehistoric man existed whose scientific name was gigantopithecus (sic). Bell's character has just  seen one, in fact, a whole family of them in the remote mountains of Nevada...they wandered through his camp.

He entices his fellow researcher to come and see them for himself. He believes they'll be flushed out of the caves they're living in due to vibrations from an upcoming detonation of a test nuclear device by the military in the desert some miles away. So the two men go...Rose's character motivated by the quest for scientific knowledge, Bell's by the quest for lots of $$$$$...