Hobbits Live Again -- Pretty Stunning

[two]

Very interesting stuff, if it's not an elaborate hoax:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...4&e=3&u=/ap/20041027/ap_on_sc/dwarf_cavewoman

 

[Stone Dog]

The wierd loving Ken Hite reading part of me is praying for them to be found reptilian by some fringe group.
No, it is expecting a fringe group to do it, but in its delusional prayers it hopes to see "Lizard Men Discovered in Indonesia!" plastered across the New York Times.

I SO need to get out of the house...

 

[Negative Zero]

BAH! we all know that mexicans are the descendants of the hobbits. short, love their food, love their music, love their drink, furry feet. it's obvious!

~NegZ

 

[I'm A Banana]

Kick butt, if something with that small of a cranium had the technology of fire, independantly evolved......yowza.....that's exciting.

 

[tarchon]

Kick butt, if something with that small of a cranium had the technology of fire, independantly evolved......yowza.....that's exciting.

There's good evidence that erectus used it, which this would tend to confirm. Surprisingly, there are even hints that some australopithecines used fire, but the evidence is somewhat indirect.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Wow, this is really interesting. The cryptozoologists should be all over this. There's a ton of legends in southern Asia (India's nittaewo), Indonesia (orang pendek), and the South Pacific of dwarfish wildmen. And if this guy was around 20,000 years ago, doesn't that put him around with early humanity? Maybe (I always thought this about a lot of cryptids), early folk caught wind of this thing, started legends, and the stories were passed down in an oral tradition.

 

[Turanil]

Scientists called the dwarf skeleton "the most extreme" figure to be included in the extended human family. Certainly, she is the shortest.

What's so extraordinary about this discovery? Just make a trip to present Africa and meet with Pygmies. There is one pygmy living in my neighbohood; I saw him a couple of time, he's really small, even if probably closer to 4 feet.

 

[Tonguez]

What's so extraordinary about this discovery? Just make a trip to present Africa and meet with Pygmies. There is one pygmy living in my neighbohood; I saw him a couple of time, he's really small, even if probably closer to 4 feet.

Pygmies average at around 5 feet - so around the short end of human heights
the Flores Woman stands at 3 foot (which is short even for a Pygmy)

the biggest thing about this specimen though isn't the height but the age - she lived at the same time as Humans (and Neanderthals btw) were running around. This means it is the third 'hominid' contempary with 'us' (Humans). It breaks the traditional view of gradual change from ape to Homo Sapiens and suggest that at one point we were not 'alone'. For the Cryptozoologist (and DnD player) it means that once upon a time Humans did share the world with Gnomes (Flores), orcs (Neanderthals) and who knows what else.

Of course it may prove that she was just a 'pygmy' homo erectus rather than a new species and thus nothing to make a 'big' fuss about (a little fuss will do)

 

[MrFilthyIke]

For the Cryptozoologist (and DnD player) it means that once upon a time Humans did share the world with Gnomes (Flores), orcs (Neanderthals) and who knows what else.

But were the Elves (is that Homo Elvi? Homo Elivs? ) just as weak, whiny, and lame?

 

[Krieg]

Of course it may prove that she was just a 'pygmy' homo erectus rather than a new species and thus nothing to make a 'big' fuss about (a little fuss will do)

I can't help but wonder what conclusions scientists 10K years in the future will leap to when they find the the bones of Gul Mohammed....

... all 22 1/2" of them.