More Evidence For Hobbit Sized Species

GogglesPisano writes "CNN.com reports that scientists digging in a remote Indonesian cave have uncovered a jaw bone that they say adds more evidence that a tiny prehistoric Hobbit-like species once existed." From the article: "The discovery of a jaw bone, to be reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, represents the ninth individual belonging to a group believed to have lived as recently as 12,000 years ago. The bones are in a wet cave on the island of Flores in the eastern limb of the Indonesian archipelago, near Australia."

Comments

Or it could be a chromosome

[Anonymous Coward]

Or a G-nome.

Re:Ever think....

[Namronorman]

Bone structures change over time, especially from child to adult. I think they would have been able to tell easily if it were. The main controversy here that I see from the article is that some people believe that the bones found have been that of a person who suffered from microencephaly or dwarfism.

Re:Ever think....

[geeber]

It could have just been a young kid? I'm sure the hobbit idea is much more interesting though...

I am sure that idea never occured to the scientists doing the digging. You should write to them and let them know your brilliant theory. That would save everyone involved a lot of time.

Re:Or it could be a dwarf

[the phantom]

Traditionally? Speciation occurs when the decendant* line can no longer interbreed with the ancestor* line to produce viable offspring. Sickle cell anemia could be considered an inherited genetic disorder that is possibly a response to Malaria, yet the large populations of Africans that tend to have either full or partial expression of the trait are not a genetically distinct population -- they are still capable of reproducing with other Africans, Europeans, Asians, American Indians, or any other human population.

Defining species from fossils and bones can be a bit trickier -- can you prove that this population is (a) represented by these bones, (b) genetically distinct, and (c) incapable of creating viable offspring with any other 'human' population.

I would also like to note that there are a great variety of human populations. In Africa alone, there are groups that tend to be quite short and robust, and groups that tend to be quite tall and gracile. In a fossil record, they might bee seen as distinct species, yet we know that they can have children together. Just one of the hazards of fossils, I suppose.

* ancestor and decendant, are, of course, relative

Re:All makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

which starred Ian MacKellen who was also in X-Men with Donna Goodhand, who was in Cavedweller with... Kevin Bacon.

Synchronicities abound

[Ungulate]

Funny, I was just reading about floresiensis last night. I was greatly intrigued by the fact that the islanders' oral history includes stories about monkey-like men that closely fit the description of floresiensis man. They maintain that they were still around after the Dutch arrived in the 16th century, until about 300 years ago when they got fed up with their hijinks and set out to kill them all. Apparently there were still sightings up until the 19th century.

The most likely explanation seems to be that a population of h. erectus found itself on the island and, through island dwarfing, ended up at their diminutive height. I find the thought of sub-human hominids suriving until that recently both creepy and fascinating. More reading at wikipedia

Legend of these people in Tonga

[dhammabum]

I lived in Tonga for a couple of years in the 70's and there was a tale of very small people that were living in Tonga at the time the Polynesians arrived, at least on one island. They said these people were found on 'Ata Island (the southernmost island in the group). The new Tongans apparently gave them food initially, then for whatever reason decided to kill them off and blocked them in a cave. This is quite a similar story to that told on Flores Is. where the current discoveries have been made.

The interesting bit is that this island is uninhabited as South American slavers came in the mid-1800s and captured all the males off the island. The King then had the women and children rescued and declared the island off limits. When I was there we tried to go to the island for a scientific survey but King Tupou Fa refused. The place is only visited by occasional fishermen.