Hobbits Mastered Use Of Stone Tools

The Australian ^ | 10-9-2007 | Leigh Dayton

[blam]

Hobbits mastered use of stone tools

Leigh Dayton, Science writer
October 09, 2007

HOBBITS may have had long arms and tiny brains but our new-found cousins were agile and smart enough to make stone tools used to fashion other tools, probably for hunting and butchering animals.

What's more, they did so at least 40,000 years before modern humans arrived on their home island of Flores in Indonesia.

The discovery comes from Queensland scientists who have studied wear patterns and residue on about 100 stone tools found with the remains of hobbits (Homo floresiensis) in Liang Bua cave by Australian and Indonesian researchers.

University of Queensland and Southern Cross University archeologist and paleobotanist Carol Lentfer said: "We're talking about a creature that was fairly well advanced. It was able to use stone tools to make other tools - value-adding in a sense."

Working with University of Queensland colleagues Michael Haslam and Gail Robertson, Dr Lentfer found evidence of plant work and butchery on stone flakes and cobbles from archeological layers ranging from 12,000 to 55,000 years old.

They identified blood and bone on some tools, but more than 90 per cent of the residues were from woody and fibrous plants. That doesn't mean the metre-high people ate only a little meat, but rather that most of the tools studied so far were used for working with plants.

"Maybe they were making spear-shafts or traps or sharpening sticks," Dr Lentfer said.

"So far there's no evidence they used stone spear points for hunting. They probably used fire-hardened sticks."

[Disambiguator]

I have proof I am descended from a species with long arms and small brians

I hope a "brian" is not the same as something else with a male name.

[kbennkc]

That would be a william jefferson , also small . You humans sheesh .

[ARE SOLE]

A recently spotted a bumper sticker here in LA:

"Frodo failed. Bush has the Ring".

Regards

[SunkenCiv]

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