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Large Hominin Teeth Found in Hobbits’ Cave Wednesday, September 21, 2016 NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA—According to a report in Nature, archaeologist Thomas Sutikna and geochronologist Richard Roberts of the University of Wollongong say that two teeth from modern humans have been found in the Indonesian cave where the remains of Homo floresiensis were discovered in 2003. The teeth have been dated to 46,000 years ago, making them slightly younger than the estimated date for the extinction of the hobbits some 50,000 years ago. The upper premolar and lower molar are larger than the teeth of H. floresiensis, but some scholars...

Pretty much everyone knows that JRR Tolkien was the pre-eminent fantasy writer of the past century, if not all time. His writing contains uniquely invented languages, epic back stories, and creatures that could only have proceeded from his imagination. Far from the nihilistic and often crude work of the so-called “American Tolkien” George R.R. Martin of “Game of Thrones” fame, Tolkien’s work was full of beauty, whimsy and hidden truth. What most people probably don’t know is that the Nazis were a pretty big fan of Tolkien, too. The Nazis were (as historian Heather Pringle lays out brilliantly in...

PETER Jackson's troubled Hobbit project has become embroiled in a race row after a would-be extra was told she was too dark to play one of the pint-sized Tolkien creatures, reports said. Briton Naz Humphreys, who has Pakistani heritage, attended a casting session in the New Zealand city of Hamilton last week, queueing for three hours only to be told her skin tone was not suitable, the Waikato Times reported. "It's 2010 and I still can't believe I'm being discriminated against because I have brown skin," Humphreys told the newspaper. "The casting manager basically said they weren't having anybody who...

Al-Qaida puts price on Sooner soldier But Maj. Wes Parker's main concern is getting a water well drilled in an impoverished Afghan village. HAJI TUTI, Afghanistan -- U.S. Army Maj. Wes Parker is a man with a bounty on his head. The al-Qaida is supposedly offering $50,000 for the capture of the Oklahoman alive; $25,000, if he is killed. But, right now, Parker isn't too worried about that. He's trying to figure out how to get a well dug to the proper depth for the struggling village of Haji Tuti. "Well, if the reward stories are true, it's just another...

Greenpeace activists carry a giant puppet of Australian Prime Minister John Howard as it dangles from the fingers of a giant Gollum, a character in the Lord Of The Rings: The Twin Towers film. Photo: Reuters Greenpeace members hung a giant puppet of the visiting Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, from a Wellington cinema yesterday in protest against his support for war on Iraq. The puppet was dangled from the fingers of a giant Gollum, a character in Lord Of The Rings: The Twin Towers, that sits on top of the building. "John Howard ... has sent troops to...

Fraud of the rings? Evil has been unleashed on the film world, a bane that threatens to darken the industry for ever. The monster franchise that is The Lord of the Rings is upon us again. But is the movie any good? It doesn't matter, laments Steve Jelbert 13 December 2002 Just as the year comes to an end, the second part of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy appears with the shameless tagline, "This Xmas the journey continues in... The Two Towers", a gloriously inappropriate way to promote the world's favourite modern pagan epic. It's unlikely, though, that...