Posted on 10/11/2005 8:34:12 AM PDT by aculeus
LONDON (Reuters) - Australian scientists said on Tuesday they have discovered more remains of hobbit-sized humans which belong to a previously unknown species that lived at the end of the last Ice Age.
Professor Mike Morwood, of the University of New England, in Armidale, Australia, stunned the science world last year when he and his team announced the discovery of 18,000-year-old remains of a new human species called Homo floresiensis.
The partial skeleton discovered in a limestone cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 was of a tiny adult hominid, or early human, only one meter (3 feet tall), that would have walked upright and had a chimpanzee-sized brain.
Morwood and his team said it represented a unique species of early humans that evolved to a naturally small size because of environmental conditions and the isolation of the island, which was also home to exotic creatures such as miniature elephants and Komodo dragons.
But critics suggested the small hominid was not a new species and was more likely a pygmy human or a creature that suffered from a form of microcephaly, a condition that causes an unusually small brain.
"The finds further demonstrate ...(it) is not just an aberrant or pathological individual but is representative of a long-term population," Morwood and his team said in a report in the science journal Nature.
CHINLESS WONDERS
The newly found remains, dug up in 2004, consist of a jaw, as well as arm and other bones which the researchers believe were from at least nine individuals.
A jaw bone reported last year and the latest one were probably from the same species, according to the scientists. Both share similar dental features and lacked chins.
The new species, dubbed "Flores man," is thought to be a descendent of Homo erectus, which had a large brain, was full-sized and spread from Africa to Asia about 2 million years ago.
"Although the original skeleton is estimated to be 18,000 years old, a child's radius (arm bone) was found in deposits estimated to be 12,000 years old," Daniel Lieberman, of Harvard University in Massachusetts, said in a commentary in the journal.
He added that if the remains were from a population of short microcephalic humans they would have had to survive a long time or been susceptible to a high frequency of dwarfism.
"Such possibilities strain credulity," Lieberman added.
CAT scans of the inside of the skull found in 2003 suggested it was a normal adult and not a diseased or mutant species. The brain could have been advanced enough for tool-making.
But Robert Martin, provost and vice president of academic affairs at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois is unconvinced.
"Whatever else is true, that brain is simply too small for an 18,000 year-old hominid," he told Reuters.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
You seem to be pretending this question does not exist. The "microcephalic" dismissal made a lot more sense when there was only one such specimen. It hardly makes any sense to keep up the game now, unless one has some ulterior motive.
You seem to be LOL'ing at anyone who believes Floriensis is anything other than .... a modern MIDGET!!?? Hello?
Maybe it should be called a hobbinid...
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Perhaps they "tossed" them in.
Was going to ping you to this but someone already did :) Pretty interesting.
Robert Martin, provost and vice president of academic affairs at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois is unconvinced. "Whatever else is true, that brain is simply too small for an 18,000 year-old hominid," he told Reuters.And the Neandertal brain was too large for an 18,000 year old human. :') The notion of progress holds back, uh, progress.
I agree too.
Hey, yer' a smart guy...mind if I butt in here...
...what if, say...your ancestors just sort-of came across some allegedly already dead say, alleged perhaps mythological even hobbitses or whatever...just for example..for no particular reason, just to pull an idea out of a hat, for argument's sake, and...er...sort of accidentally ate some of the alleged hobbitses...
...I mean I couldn't get in trouble for that could I, for example...allegedly...???!!! I mean even if it turns out there were a whole lot more of them than...say...like even a lot, say...for example....
Awful quiet around here all of a sudden Muttly..
...uh-oh
[A recently discovered species of human, small of stature and likely of limited intellect and capability, about which little is known outside raw guesswork. Engenders intense debate over its origins.]
Oh No! Not another Harriet Miers thread!
The division of the human family into 2 distinct political groups began some 12,000 years ago.
Humans existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunter/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains in the summer, and would go to the beach and live on fish and lobster in winter.
The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives.
Once beer was discovered it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early human ancestors were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to barbecue at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as " The Conservative Movement."
Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly barbecue and doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of "The Liberal Movement."
Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as 'girley-men.' Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.
Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass. Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.
Another interesting evolutionary side note, most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't "fair" to make the pitcher also bat.
Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, airline pilots, lumberjacks, construction workers, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, soldiers, athletes and generally anyone who works productively outside government. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.
Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to "govern" the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tame and created a business of trying to get MORE for nothing.
Here ends today's lesson in world history.
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I agree! The hobbits are probably an isolated branch of erectus or another early pre-human.
Fascinating in either case! We're going to learn a lot from this one.
...uh...YES!....another one of those. Heh...heh....I made the whole thing up.
Silly me.
Well...time to see if there's anything new about Kyoto...or..Miers..whatever....heh..heh...
(run muttly. run now)
I don't understand his complaint. I thought the brain atrophies the older you get, and by 18,000 would be minuscule...barely enough left to cackle maniacally at odd intervals.
" it has a Brocha's Area four times larger than Modern Humans."
So, they were a race of talk-show hosts?
ping
Interesting theory but just a theory.
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