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.

New species explaination

[fembots (753724)]

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?

Re:New species explaination

[eln (21727)]

Well see, they were originally only out on a three-hour tour, so when their ship wrecked, they had no way of getting back because they hadn't packed the emergency supplies you would normally expect them to have.

Sure, they had one guy who could make a lot of crap out of coconuts, and they always had some celebrity guests drop in for some wacky hijinks, but they never could quite get off that island. Tragic story, really.

Re:New species explaination

[fatmonkeyboy (257833)]

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?

Well, maybe they did...but that doesn't debunk the theory. Europeans found their way to the Americas, but there are still Europeans in Europe.

Re:New species explaination

[Mignon (34109)]

... there are still Europeans in Europe.

Other than that, it's a lovely place to visit.

Re:New species explaination

[werfele (611119)]

It's also possible they had a way on to the island, but not off, once the resources contraints began. Look at the case of Easter Island [calacademy.org], whose inhabitants had the technology to travel hundreds of miles from Polynesia, but so thoroughly depleted their resources that they could no longer build boats to leave once the problems began.

Re:New species explaination

[by Anonymous Coward]

Actually the real explanation, as we all know, is that the devil put those fossils there to lead us astray from the path of righteousness. Don't spout atheist evolution nonsense on here please.

Re:New species explaination

[greg_barton (5551)]

Maybe these tiny people have some kind of sickness (or just look tiny), and were therefore exiled from the main(is)land?

And this sickness also made their arms proportionately longer, created more prominent bone ridges above their eyes, gave them a sharply sloping forehead, and no chin? And it affected at least seven known individuals in the same way over a span of 30,000 of years, with no known fossil evidence of any "normal" hominids co-existing on the same island in that time?

Riiiight...

Re:New species explaination

[mikael (484)]

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.

That's the argument used for living in extreme cold. We were told that ethnic cultures such as the Zulu's were tall because that was the best way to radiate heat (taller == more elongated == more surface area/volume), and that the Innuit were short and round due to the extreme cold (shorter == more spherical == less surface area/volume).

For reptiles, warmer temperatures usually leads to larger body sizes, while colder temperatures leads to smaller sizes.

So, maybe the climate went the other way, and everything became colder?

It has to do with humidity, not heat.

[Cyberllama (113628)]

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.

Wrong Movie...

[kzinti (9651)]

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

evolutionary pressure

[immerrath (607098)]

clearly there was evolutionary pressure to maintain the same size for all species on the island: giant lizards, pygmy elephants, and small humans.

Re:evolutionary pressure

[Ford Prefect (8777)]

In this Washington Post Writeup", they clearly refer to the "island rule: animals smaller than rabbits get larger; animals larger than rabbits get smaller."

What about rabbits? What size do they become?

Re:evolutionary pressure

[lawpoop (604919)]

Rabbit sized.

Re:evolutionary pressure

[Cyberllama (113628)]

You joke, but you're actually correct. What you describe is a biological phenomenon observed on many island ecosystems called Foster's rule.

In short, it dictates that animals coming from a continent that are large, will get smaller when isolated on an island -- animals that are small, will tend to get larger.

Hobbit Sized

[93,000 (150453)]

I dig how they say "Hobbit sized" to capitailize on LOTR's popularity. In '83 they would have said "Ewok sized".

Re:Hobbit Sized

[Kenshin (43036)]

Well, I guess a few years ago that woulda been "Mini-Me sized".

What about the '90s?

Re:Hobbit Sized

[TobiasSodergren (470677)]

in the early 90's Milli Vanilli got a Grammy Award. Then the IT industry died. Yep, I think I got it all covered.

The questions on everybody's mind:

[multipart/mixed (163409)]

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?

Re:The questions on everybody's mind:

[Average_Joe_Sixpack (534373)]

2. Would they make good slaves?

We IT folk have enough competition as it is!

Re:The questions on everybody's mind:

[EnronHaliburton2004 (815366)]

Slaves? SLAVES?

That's tender young juicy Hobbit meat you are talking about.

Slave, feh. I've been stuck in this cave for three lousy years with nothing but maggoty meat to eat and you want Slaves?

Re:The questions on everybody's mind:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Shireassic Park?

This is so stupid

[lamp77 (147098)]

everyone knows the world was created 6000 years ago.

jeez.

Re:Not to state the obvious or anything...

[by Anonymous Coward]

That's why I believe the universe was created in the 70's.

Re:Not to state the obvious or anything...

[bullitB (447519)]

Uh, duh, the Unix epoch is January 1, 1970. Any universe before that would have required negative time(), which is clearly impossible.

Spoiler Warning

[Shky (703024)]

Guess Frodo, Bilbo and the remaining elves made a wrong turn on the way to the Grey Havens.

Hobbit sized?

[cliffordski (748991)]

How can anything be hobbit sized? A hobbit is a fictional creature; it has never existed. Now a troll...

Re:Hobbit sized?

[iamlucky13 (795185)]

Ok, whoever modded that comment "Troll" has a absolutely sadistic but delightfully clever sense of humor!

Interaction with Modern Humans

[pholower (739868)]

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.

Re:Interaction with Modern Humans

[geekotourist (80163)]

These are pygmy Homo erectus, not pygmy Homo sapiens, and the differences between the two are significant.

Looking at Hominid species and their brain sizes [talkorigins.org], and the actual information about the fossils themselves [talkorigins.org], you can examine the differences.

While the smallest of the small modern human overlaps with non-pygmy H. erectus, as written here [talkorigins.org]: "The low volume skulls were not primitive or aberrant in any way; their small volume was merely a result of the smallness of the entire skull. So although the extreme lower range of modern human brain sizes does overlap that of Homo erectus, their skulls are very different: in H. erectus, the brain case really is smaller in relation to the rest of the skull. In small modern humans, the skull proportions are normal and the brain size is small only because the skull is small." When you compare the two [talkorigins.org], (another example here [talkorigins.org], or look at a comparison of multiple Hominids here [talkorigins.org]) you can see that H. erectus isn't ever going to be mistaken for a small-skulled H. sapiens. The pygmy H. erectus has a brain that's half the size of a regular H. erectus. Floresiensis is smart and a tool/ fire user because Homo had been doing that for 2 million years, not because its a Homo sapiens.

Summarizing species and brain sizes...

1. Last common ancestor (Gorilla, Pan, Hominid)
modern Gorilla (average 500 cc)

2. Last common ancestor (Pan, Hominid)
modern Chimp (average 400 cc)
3. Australopithecus
(375 to 550 cc)

4. Homo habilis
(500 to 800 cc)

5. Homo erectus-> ->5a.Homo floresiensis
(750 to 1225 cc) (380 cc)

6.Homo antecessor
| \ 6b. H.s. neanderthalensis (average 1450 cc)
|
6a. H. s. archaic
(average 1200 cc)
(sometimes called H. heidelbergensis)
|
7. Homo sapiens sapiens
(average 1350 cc)

Hmm...

[Blue-Footed Boobie (799209)]

Those nasty hominidses. We hates them!

Not too surprising

[Camel Pilot (78781)]

When you have some species like Canine's that range in size from Mastif to Chihuahua

Re:Not too surprising

[ucblockhead (63650)]

Canines were deliberately bred like that. No dog is the direct product of nature evolution but rather is the direct product of human breeding programs.

Re:Not too surprising

[Colonel Cholling (715787)]

No dog is the direct product of nature evolution but rather is the direct product of human breeding programs.

Er, sorry, no. Dogs are the product of natural evolution, which includes human breeding programs. In other words, dogs as a species changed in various ways affected by their living in proximity to, and interacting with, humans. This is no less "natural" than, say, predators and prey developing different ways to catch/evade each other, or symbiotic species developing a dependence on each other. The idea that "nature" somehow stops once you get to humans, and everything we do is its own separate domain, is misleading.

In a related find

[RsG (809189)]

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.

Hmm

[retro128 (318602)]

Obviously the Hobbits didn't finish off Mt. Doom as well as they thought they did.

Seven short guys

[raider_red (156642)]

Is Snow White's house anywhere nearby?

In Other News...

[eskwayrd (575069)]

Snow White brought in for questioning related to 7 suspicious deaths. Details at 11.

The reason they died out.

[wcrowe (94389)]

Someone was always after their Lucky Charms.

Super Volcano?

[Gogela (750552)]

I recently watched a discovery channel program about super volcanos ( Super Volcano info here [freerepublic.com])that might explain the demise of the Hobbits. Apparently, there was a bottleneck sometime in human history that limited our genetic diversity. According to Discovery, that bottleneck might have been caused by a volcano many thousands of times the power of any volcano we have seen to date. The biggest one they know about is in Yellowstone National Park, and is set to go off again anytime within the next 200,000 years. The theory goes that one of these volcanos erupted and wiped out all but 15-20,000 humans, almost wiping us off the face of the earth. Maybe it killed the Hobbits... and the Orcs... and the Gobblins...

New Hominid species of diminutive size found...

[gatekeep (122108)]

... in Japan!

Menehune

[ziegast (168305)]

I'm surprised that the article didn't mention Menehune [wikipedia.org] 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.

Oh my god

[RealErmine (621439)]

"The idea of how they got there is still very much in the air."

They could FLY!?

little walls, little bridges

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

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?

These are clearly not hobbits

[deft (253558)]

7 of them in caves? Hmm, perhaps working?

try sleepy, bashful, dopey, sneezy...

Keep digging, you'll pull up a hot brunette.

Ahoy!

[The-Bus (138060)]

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 [sciam.com]. As expected, it's a bit more in-depth than "Hobbits Found!"

Bayan Kara-Ula - Dropa and the Han

[UnkyHerb (12862)]

This immediatly reminded me of the Dropa and the Han [20kweb.com]from the Bayan Kara-Ula regin near Tibet. Heres a Picture [20kweb.com] 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 [msn.com]

Flores is a big Island

[Kamerynn (726494)]

There is a big mistake in the article. Flores is roughly half the size of Belgium, or +- 14 000 sq km.

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/indon esia.gif [usda.gov]

Flores is approximately at 9S 122E

Re:non-human?

[by Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:small brains

[Chris Mattern (191822)]

> I have seen functioning humans with heads the size of a grapefruit.

Yes, yes, we've all seen managers too.

Chris Mattern

Re:Frodo

[ozbird (127571)]

Of course they're dwarves - there were seven of them.