'Hobbits' Not A Different Species, Say Scientists

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 1-3-2008 | Roger Highfield

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[mad_as_he$$]

Watched a show about this on the Science Channel yesterday. laid it out in good form but there are still issues with both sides of the argument. I found it most telling that almost all the inhabitants of the island where the Hobbit was found are very small. Is it genetic or is it the food supply?

[Coyoteman]

Cool!

[Maelstorm]

It still amazes me how quickly “scientists” jump to conclusions on faith alone. ;-)

[Sacajaweau]

Was it a colony that was transferred to the area...like the leper colony in Hawaii? Did interbreeding continue until the defect and its’ other weaknesses eventually killed the colony off?

[PeteB570]

I saw the same program.

When that older village chief showed up, man was he short.

[mad_as_he$$]

All good unanswered questions. You get the bone guys in the real world they tend to lock up.

[Sacajaweau]

It’s my opinion that controversy on all these “guesses” produces NEW GRANT MONEY. It’s a game. But it’s interesting.

[Sacajaweau]

And he was the HIGH CHIEF.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Full headline:

‘Hobbits’ Not A Different Species, Say Scientists: Doubts about Democrats Linger

[Mr. Brightside]

[SunkenCiv]

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[ApplegateRanch]

almost all the inhabitants of the island where the Hobbit was found are very small. Is it genetic or is it the food supply?

Food of the Anti-Gods?

there are still issues with both sides of the argument

Story after story, and it all comes down to he-thinks/she-thinks.

Take a cheek swab & a blood sample, and let me know when the paternity test is back.

Finding truth is one thing; so is attempting to uphold one's reputation; wrangling for the sake of garnering more grant money is just unseemly.

[sauropod]

Except for their feet...

[Dustbunny]

A person would have to be brain dead to actually believe that they found Hobbit type people remains. I guess some sort of dwarfism but perfectly proportioned would never have entered their mind.

Sometimes I really wonder whether they make totally off the wall statements just to get their names in the News cycle.

[blam]

This is a pretty good book, you may change your opinion after reading.

The Discovery of the Hobbit - Mike Morwood and Penny Van Oosterzee

"Since then, bones belonging to at least eight more individuals have been found, ranging in age from 95,000 to 12,000 years old. Our own species has been alive for at least 100,000 years, in case you were wondering. "

If all the samples found over a range of 83,000 years exhibit the same charactistics...I wouldn't expect that only the bones of the diseased one would survive.

"These bones are such a conglomeration of the primitive and the modern, so tiny, and so recent, that many scientists thought they were a hoax. "If you told me an alien space craft had landed in a field in Flores I would have been less surprised," said experienced paleoanthropologist Peter Brown, who studied the bones.

[blam]

Morwood compares the 'Hobbits' to these guys found in Georgia:

Stranger In A New Land (Archaeology)

[Dustbunny]

How about the pygmies in Africa. I love the show Little People Big World. There have been very small perfectly proportioned people on that show.

[OB1kNOb]