Posted on 10/27/2004 10:51:55 AM PDT by presidio9
Scientists in Australia have found a new species of hobbit-sized humans who lived about 18,000 years ago on an Indonesian island in a discovery that adds another piece to the complex puzzle of human evolution.
The partial skeleton of Homo floresiensis, found in a cave on the island of Flores, is of an adult female that was a metre (3 feet) tall, had a chimpanzee-sized brain and was substantially different from modern humans.
It shared the isolated island to the east of Java with miniature elephants and Komodo dragons. The creature walked upright, probably evolved into its dwarf size because of environmental conditions and coexisted with modern humans in the region for thousands of years.
"It is an extraordinarily important find," Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum in London, told a news conference on Wednesday. "It challenges the whole idea of what it is that makes us human."
Peter Brown of the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, and his colleagues made the discovery of the skull and other bones, and miniature tools in September 2003 while looking for records of modern human migration to Asia. They reported the finding in the science journal Nature.
"Finding these hominins on an isolated island in Asia, and with elements of modern human behaviour in tool making and hunting, is truly remarkable and could not have been predicted by previous discoveries," Brown said in a statement.
Local legends tell of hobbit-like creatures existing on islands long ago but there has been no evidence of them.
DESCENDENT OF HOMO ERECTUS
The hominin family tree, which includes humans and pre-humans, diverged from the chimpanzee line about 7 million years ago. Early African hominins walked upright, were small and had tiny brains.
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 out from Africa to Asia about 2 million years ago.
The new species became isolated on Flores and evolved into its dwarf form to conform with conditions, such as food shortages. Flores, which was probably never connected to the mainland, was home to a variety of exotic creatures including a dwarf form of the primitive elephant Stegodon.
Modern humans had reached Australia about 45,000 years ago but they may not have passed through Flores. The scientists suspect the new species became extinct after a massive volcanic eruption on the island about 12,000 years ago.
Brown and his colleagues have found the remains of seven other dwarf individuals at the same site since the first find.
"The other individuals all show similar characteristics, and over a time range that now extends from as long ago as 95,000 years to as recently as 13,000 years ago -- a population of hobbits that seemed to disappear at about the same time as the pygmy elephants that they hunted," said Bert Roberts, one of the authors of the Nature study.
And that worked so well, didn't it? ;-p
note to self: avoid brooklyn
I think we just utilized the energy from the bomb to grow stronger.
Mwahahahah!
Grandpa, is that you?
Like Godzilla or something...
Well they did film the movies in New Zealand. Perhaps there was a Hobbit race in that part of the world and they were somehow able to channel through J.R.R. Tolkien.
D'OH!
Most apes are...
This purports to be science writing?
So here comes his friend Joe who says...that can't be right and both are handed a check. Grants for some of this stuff is extraordinary. In the end, they only prove one truth...we're here for a very short time. Of course, museums benefit,too ....especially when they de-ascession the stuff.
I have a friend who gave him his entire documented american indian collection. He said it went out the back door faster than he could bring it in.
Only more attractive.
Hobbit ping!
Ewww.
Just more people trying to say that belief in God is hokum.
Eh?
I think humans looked pretty much the same when they were first created as they do now. I'm here for the laughs. :-)
if it really was homo-cialis, then extinction would not occur. this species probably took viagra, but then it took more than 8 hours to find a mate. if they took cialis, then they would have had 36 hours to find a mate, a much greater possibility that the species would have survived.
i wonder if they got medical attention after 4 hours?
Spock lives!
Did it have giant outsized feet?
LQ
Hadda do it, though. ;)
If it has a brain the size of a chimp's isnt' it rather likely that it IS a chimp or variety of chimp? And how does finding one skeletan extrapolate to an entire population or species?
I am always amused by the imaginations of some people. They find a few chipped rocks and some pieces of skeletan in Africa and create whole new classes of "hominids" that supposedly fill in the gaps of the "evolutionary chain". I classify most of this under Science Fiction and await something like real evidence.
I believe they missed an opportunity for accuracy - should have said "humanoids" vs. "humans"...
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