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New Hominid Species Unearthed in Indonesia
Radical Rad writes "ABC News is reporting that anthropologists have found the skeletal remains of seven hobbit sized hominids. The population may have been wiped out by a volcanic activity 12000 years ago or according to local legend may have lived up until the 1500's living on in caves and eating food the villagers would leave out for them. Also found were bones of giant lizards and miniature elephants. CBS
also has the story." National Geographic and the BBC have good stories.
The current explanation for these "hobbits" is they somehow got to this 31-square-mile island, and because of the habitat/food source limition, they grew smaller so that they cooled off more easily, and used less energy.
However, if they were smart enough to find a way to this island, couldn't they just do another island-hoping to a bigger island like Sumantra, or even Australia?
The article also mentioned "many anthropologists have argued that in recent years, scientists have been adding too many new species to the human evolutionary tree. They say scientists have become too quick to call what may simply be an unusual individual a member of a whole new species."
Maybe these tiny people have some kind of sickness (or just look tiny), and were therefore exiled from the main(is)land?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
clearly there was evolutionary pressure to maintain the same size for all species on the island: giant lizards, pygmy elephants, and small humans.
I dig how they say "Hobbit sized" to capitailize on LOTR's popularity. In '83 they would have said "Ewok sized".
Sweet informative mod.
1. Is there sufficient DNA material at any of the dig sites to allow us to clone a hobbit?
2. Would they make good slaves?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
everyone knows the world was created 6000 years ago.
jeez.
Guess Frodo, Bilbo and the remaining elves made a wrong turn on the way to the Grey Havens.
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
How can anything be hobbit sized? A hobbit is a fictional creature; it has never existed. Now a troll...
I find it interesting that they could have possibly intereacted with modern humans and their "species" could have overlapped with ours, but I agree with the scientist arguing over naming a new species. Let's rule out any major speculation before we go naming new evolutionary tree branches.
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
Those nasty hominidses. We hates them!
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
When you have some species like Canine's that range in size from Mastif to Chihuahua
Among the midget hominid remains in Indonesia, a gold ring was also discovered.
"Antropologists are perplexed as to how a ring found it's way into the hands of a species lacking basic metallurgy or fire. One scientist was quoted as saying 'The precious, er I mean artifact, is a remarkable lovely find. So bright, so beautiful...' He was later heard to remark 'mine, mine, get away!! Filthy little grad students!!'"
Peter Jackson was not available for comment.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Obviously the Hobbits didn't finish off Mt. Doom as well as they thought they did.
-R
Is Snow White's house anywhere nearby?
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Snow White brought in for questioning related to 7 suspicious deaths. Details at 11.
eskwayrd = m^2c^4
Someone was always after their Lucky Charms.
Proverbs 21:19
RTFA
How can these researchers say for certain that these remains are of anything other than humans?
The skulls are not similar to modern humans, but are similar to Homo Erectus, from which these creatures are thought to descend.
It is more probable that these remains represent a small group of homo sapiens that had genetic development problems, or some other kind of ailment.
See above. It is often debatable whether or not unique features (in this case size) represent a continum or a distinct species. It is not an exact science, and we may never know for sure. However, there is no other example of an adult human being so small.
Pygmies exist in Africa today, but are not considered a new species.
Pygmies are considerbly taller then these "hobbits". Also Pygmies are modern humans, the "hobbits" were not.
This report is more about research scientists getting more grant money than actually using the scientific method.
The findings are being reported in Nature, which has exceedingly high standards. There is absolutely no reason to make such accusations.
A hungry man will tell you anything if you give him a cookie.
... in Japan!
Oompa loompa doompety doo ...
I've got a perfect puzzle for you
Oompa loompa doompety dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me
Oompa loompa doompety da
If you're not greedy, you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the Oompa Loompa Doompety do
Doompety do
I'm surprised that the article didn't mention Menehune which are "little gods" that frequent Hawaiian and Polynesian folklore and mythology. When the settlers of the Pacific Islands were traveling around settling different islands thousands of years ago, they learned from little natives that seems gifted in surviving on the islands.
"The idea of how they got there is still very much in the air."
They could FLY!?
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
That's why I believe the universe was created in the 70's.
Hawai'i is full of stories about the "Menehune", the "little people" who lived in the islands before Polynesians arrived and took over. I have seen some of the walls they say were built by the Menehune, and they are different from the walls built by Polynesians and Europeans (and other "globals" following European arrival). The walls are fitted together more closely, with a technique that more resembles the Egyptian and Mayan walls that I've seen, though much smaller in scale. Perhaps we don't have the first global culture?
--
make install -not war
7 of them in caves? Hmm, perhaps working?
try sleepy, bashful, dopey, sneezy...
Keep digging, you'll pull up a hot brunette.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Theeeere's my rejected submission...
More information on these hobbit-sized wonders can be found at Scientific American which runs a Q&A with Dr. Brown. As expected, it's a bit more in-depth than "Hobbits Found!"
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
> I have seen functioning humans with heads the size of a grapefruit.
Yes, yes, we've all seen managers too.
Chris Mattern
So if we follow the map (assuming sea level has risen since Middle Earth days), mountain chain, south to Rohan, East, that would put Mordor right ... about ... Here.
I thought Rohan/Gondor west of Ithilien river looked a lot like Australia. Now we know.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Hobbits, are you crazy? Someone has clearly been reading too much Tolkein. Read the article: they were found in CAVES. So obviously, we're not dealing with hobbits, but dwarves.
it always concerns me that paleontologists and anthropologists are always so excited over finding *one* specimen. and usually just a partial one at that.
i'm no paleontologist (and i don't play one on tv, either) so i don't know exactly how well you can really extrapolate a whole species' traits from one specimen. do you know, for instance, that it's genetically "normal" for its species? was it typical of the nutritional, physical, and in the case of hominids, social environment?
for instance, what would be the inference if a future archaeologist found the skeletal remains of the following: someone born with Down Syndrome, someone with Marfan Syndrome, and someone with one of the 522 different types of dwarfism - skeletons or models of which can typically be found in better natural history and science museums around the world.
where, for instance, are Lucy's kin? and she's the basis for whole shelves of books on human evolution.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
In africa, you have some of the tallest tribes in the world in close proximity to some of the shortest. The difference in their environments is not the heat -- the heat is constant -- but rather the humidity. In areas where the humidity is high, being larger does you no good. Sweat won't evaporate so the extra surface area isn't useful.
In areas where the humidity is lower, being taller is a great way to help get rid of excess heat.
However that may not be what's going on on this island at all.
The other lifeforms are textbook examples of foster's rule in action. Foster's rule is the maxim that states that creatures isolated on a small island will experiece dramatic changes in size (or die, adapt or die).
So, for instance, the pygmy elephants got smaller than the elephants they started as because there simply wouldn't have been enough vegatation on the island to support them otherwise. There was EXTREME selective pressure to get smaller, so it happened fast.
Meanwhile, because nothing was around to eat these pygmy elephants, those komodo dragons that were born larger than the others were significantly more fit becuase they might be able to exploit the elephants as a food source (which they did -- they sustained themselves on the elephants until they went extinct, at which time humans brought deer to the islands thus providing them with a new food source).
One creature had selective pressure to get bigger, another to get smaller. In *general*, Foster's rule is that things will get smaller. But occasionally (such as in the example above), the rule can work in reverse.
This immediatly reminded me of the Dropa and the Han from the Bayan Kara-Ula regin near Tibet. Heres a Picture of them. Look around on the web and you can find more information. They were small people. "The Bayan Kara Ula, or Bayan Har Shan, area of China is where the source of Yangtze River is located and where the Mekong River turns south toward Vietnam. It's said to be very isolated and the people there still live in rather primitive conditions, although this is changing very quickly. In January of 1938, a Chinese archaeologist named Professor Chu Pu Tei led a rather routine expedition into these mountains. However, what they discovered in a group of caves shunned by the superstitious local natives was far from routine. In the caves, the expedition discovered a series of graves lined up in rows. On the walls of the caves there were stick-figure drawings of men with elongated heads and representations of the sun, moon, and stars. When they excavated the graves, the archaeologists found skeletons of less than four feet in length with abnormally large skulls." link
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
The most interesting thing about these are that the natives of the island have many legends about people exactly fitting this description (three feet tall and humanoid) that are extremely detailed. The legends even include that these 'hobbits' had languages of their own.
First, this would be the first case of modern humans having even psuedo-recorded contact with another intelligent species.
Second, this rips back open the possibility of our faerie tales being more true than most of us would have expected.
>How can these researchers say for certain that these remains are of anything other than humans?
I assume that by "human" you mean the species Homo sapiens. The shape of the skull, dentition, the shape of the tibia, all point to it not being H. sapiens. In fact, there is some debate over whether it belongs in the genus Homo at all.>It is more probable that these remains represent a small group of homo sapiens that had genetic development problems, or some other kind of ailment.
No, it is not. This would require an even greater speciation event than the idea that they are descended from H. erectus through isolation and time. To state that it is more probable that they are simply mutant H. sapiens shows both your ignorance of biology and your creationist indoctrination.>Pygmies exist in Africa today, but are not considered a new species.
That's because they aren't a new species. Height is not the issue here. Try to learn just a little bit of comparative hominid anatomy before making yourself look a fool.>This report is more about research scientists getting more grant money than actually using the scientific method.
This is just standard creationist bullshit. You are impugning the reputation of scientific professionals you have never met on the basis of absolutely ZERO evidence. The implication of your statement is that they have knowingly falsified data to obtain money. Please immediately post a link to any kind to support for your slander or retract it. You are simply repeating the creationist lies you have been taught. Read some actual science texts about hominid evolution, comparative anatomy, and paleoanthropology.I thought about modding this idiot with another Troll point, but what's the point of having karma if you can't burn some of it flaming an obvious moron.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Of course they're dwarves - there were seven of them.
Uh, duh, the Unix epoch is January 1, 1970. Any universe before that would have required negative time(), which is clearly impossible.
Yes, "real" religion where people continue to do the same things they'd do without God. Here in the states, "living in sin" only includes homosexuality, while in reality it should include alcoholism, addiction, lust, covetous behavior, and not giving your heave offering. Once again, a culture has adapted certain rules from a religion in order to justify their actions. The Jews extracted ideas from Zoroastrianism. The Romans codified and extracted ideas from Christianity. The only culture that follows the full word of their religious text is
"Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own." -JFK, 1961
That was forty three years ago. I'm always astonished that people refuse to realize that supernatural events have never, and will never exist. No one can present to me one miracle documented by modern technology and not hearsay.
Once you find your spiritual pockets empty, think about how many resources arrive at the dead-end of church building while the true salvation of food, medicine, and science wither throughout the third world.
I'm so tired of quack science making it into the mainstream.
They say that they're 'surprised' that despite the small brain size, they appeared to be quite smart. This is contrary to what we know: brain size seems to have little correlation with intelligence amongst modern humans that are not defective, and there's strong fossil evidence for ancestoral species having fairly large brains as well.
Also, there's no accounting for the construction of the pyramids with modern man's intelligence/knowledge, so there must've been smart humans at that time as well. Maybe not technologically advanced as we'd see things, but certainly inventive and observant of the world around them.
It also sounds nuts to me that they'd claim this is an entirely different species. It seems to me that it's just as much a seperate species as blacks are a different species than whites, or what have you. They're still fundamentally human, and can co-populate with other humans. Granted, there's no direct evidence that this was possible, but it seems possible. There are plenty of 4-foot-tall humans today.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
See, Bush wins.
So either it is another island they are talking about (possibly in the vicinity of Flores) or their 31sq km figure should read 31 thousand sq km (not likely given the importance of the small size of the island that explains their evolution to a small skeleton).
You can see a detailed map or the archipelago here:
http://www.sel.barc.usda.gov/scalenet/images/indoFlores is approximately at 9S 122E
>I guess I'm a creationist now, I'm glad someone had the decency to tell me.
Are you claiming that you originated the toughts you posted? I have never encountered anyone voicing the blather you posted who did not have an a priori belief in creationism. There is not one "criticism you posted that has an ounce of support for it.>Maybe you are afraid to admit that evolutionary science is full of holes,
Hardly! Please list some of these alleged holes. I would absolutely love to find one. I figure that it would be worth a Nobel Prize and life tenure at Harvard or Stanford. Seriously. My only frustration is with religious zealots trying to shoehorn their fundamentalist dogma into science classrooms.I notice that you do not deny being a creationsist. If you are going to try to pretend that your bushwah actually passes for scientific thought, you should read some actual science. That way you won't sound like a luddite. I seriously doubt that you have heard "many" people who are not creationists criticize scientific researchers for leaps of faith. That statement is another staple of the creationist propaganda mill, as is the posture of wounded innocence that you affect. Save it for someone who hasn't seen it hundreds of times. As for religion, I have no quarrel with it until it enters the science classroom. On a personal level, I regard Biblical Litteralism and its offspring, creationism as heresy.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.