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."

Re:What about modern "Small Folk"

[the phantom]

Not knowing the data that well, midgets and dwarfs seem to make up only a very small proportion of the population. If you sampled 100 people, what is the chance that you will get one diminutive person, let alone 20? The more skeletons they find that are similarly proportioned, the less likely it is that they represent statistical outliers, and the more likely it is that they represent the norm. Given the number of skeletons that have been found, I find the argument that they are statistical outliers to be unconvincing (though still possible, I suppose). A more likely explanation is that the small skeletons represent a significantly different population, whether it be an isolated group of Homo erectus, or an offshoot of the Home erectus line.

Orcs & Trolls?????

[big-giant-head]

When they the jaw bones of some Orcs and Trolls THEN I'LL BE IMPRESSED!

Re:isn't it obvious to you all?

[Anonymous Coward]

The GOOD Christian answer is that these bones are a liberal-commie-jewish plot planted by the liberal-commie-jewish agents of Satan to test our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ (who is only Jewish when it is useful for our GOOD Christian purposes).

Re:isn't it obvious to you all?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the religious answer to this? Do they contend that these were a failed first protoype of later man? Someone give me an argument to go on...

Depends on the religion. Don't believe the haters who tell you that everyone who's religious has a feeble and closed mind, and just spouts whatever they last heard coming from a pulpit: there are as many opinions among the religious as among atheists. In fact, you'll probably find an even more diverse range of opinions among the religious, since we don't feel quite so compelled to reject ideas just because they're clearly impossible. :P

If you look in Genesis, there's a bit where it says that there were giants before the Flood, so the creationists would probably tell you that there were clearly dwarfs too, but they were horrible sinful creatures that richly deserved the drowning God sent them.

As a mostly-Christian who rejects the parts of the faith that modern science has disproven (but retains the fundamental moral principles, and tries to hang on to some kind of hope for an afterlife), I personally would take the line that God set up fairly broad parameters for the evolution of intelligence, but didn't interfere with the freedom of the various types of people who evolved, so it was possible for a species to die out again.

Ask a third person, and you'll probably get a third answer. That's the way it goes with things that can't be proven or discussed scientifically - everyone's view is equally valid (or invalid, if you prefer).

Actually,

[mliikset]

...there is only more of the same information. Those who thought that the remains were of pathological anomalies continue to think the same. I think there was some difference in the stratas that the new jawbone was found, actually an older instance.

What the microcephaly proponents fail to recognize that a stable population of pathological anomalies can't exist, once the pathology is widespread in a population it would cease to be an anomaly, at least among that population.

Microcephaly as we know it medically is kind of a self-cancelling thing, most who suffer from it would be unlikely to procreate, or compete for same even in our current society, much less so in hunter gatherer societies. No reason to think that prehistoric microcephaly wouldn't be accompanied by similar deficits as is the case today. I am not an anthropologist or paleontologist though, so I'll just stand back and watch the fur fly, so to speak.

Re:isn't it obvious to you all?

[Refrag]

Replace "Christian" with "Religious Nutjob" in his post, and he'll sound like a sane human being.

Christians. Persecuted. All over the world. Haha. That's funny. Wait, did you mean to say persecuting?

Re:isn't it obvious to you all?

[MightyMartian]

Oh come on now. Christians dominate a fairly healthy fraction of the world. Now I'll freely admit that in places like Iran and China Christians tend to have a tough time of it, but to say "all over the world" is pretty ridiculous. Consider that Europe, the Americas, Europe and parts of Africa are dominated by Christians, your statement comes off as paranoid and a little delusional.

Re:Folklore, legends and truth

[Rude Turnip]

"Almost all civilizations have oral or written records of giants and dwarves (trust me, LOTR is not a new idea)."

Or, maybe we're all wired the same way and therefore tend to have the same dillusions, which then get processed and filtered differently culture-by-culture.

Re:isn't it obvious to you all?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Christian Bible and the Christian Faith is about as true as The Hobbit. DEAL WITH IT!

Re:isn't it obvious to you all?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Christian world has been a staging ground for EXTREME anti-semitism for as long as there has been a Christianity and you think you have a right to complain about persecution!? Fuck you!

Just curious

[jtroutman]

I've been wondering how scientists are capable of building histories of entire species given only one or two examples. Imagine if 100,000 years from now an archaeologist found the fossilized remains of Verne Troyer and Shaquille O'Neal. If he based his theories about ancient man on the same amount of evidence as we do today he would probably assume that there we two distinctly separate forms of man on the planet at the same time.
How can we find a couple of bones in a cave and surmise an entire branch of evolution based upon them?

I wouldn't take mythology too seriously

[Moraelin]

"Almost all civilizations have oral or written records of giants and dwarves (trust me, LOTR is not a new idea). These, as most other legends, must have some sort of factual origin"

And almost all civilizations have some undead in their mythology. E.g., vampires. What's your theory about the factual origin of those? Are you telling me that the dead actually rose from their graves and preyed upon the living?

Now seriously, at least the giants are actually _very_ easily explained by exaggeration. It's like the hunters' or fishermen's tales of catching one "I swear it was this big" and increasing every year. Well, the same happened in wars. Defeating a particularly fearsome or important opponent is gradually inflated to having bested someone Goliath sized and with various demonic features or super-powers.

You don't even have to look too far back to see exactly that. During at least one of the crusades, one of the archers on the walls is described as pretty much a giant with a siege weapon in his hand. (A saracen version of Terry Pratchett's Detritus, if you will.)

You'd think that if one of the soldiers in the garrison actually had those proportions, it would get mentioned in more places than just that battle. It's something deviating that far from the norm that you'd just have heard about it. Merchants and travellers passing through the city would have mentioned something.

So, anyway, I wouldn't take mythology as a source of factual data for anthropology or human evolution.

Hobbit only in size, not in culture

[master_p]

The size of the bone found implies a Hobbit-sized race, not a Hobbit-like culture. The only thing we know so far is the size of those hominids. They did not live in a nice miniature village like the Shire; most probably they were primitive hunters, without even knowledge of agriculture.

I don't see the big deal over their size, though. Have we forgotten that there are already very short tribes around the world (pigmeys, for example)? what makes the 'Hobbit' one different?

woohoo

[Servo]

Given how asians tend to be smaller in the first place, I don't see how this is all that exciting news. On top of that, nutrition and disease plays a huge part in height, so its entirely possible that these were not all that healthy of a group.

Re:isn't it obvious to you all?

[j_snare]

I think that's where people are screwing up with eachother.

You've got several different thoughts here:
1. Creationism, as exactly told in the bible. God used 6 days and rested the 7th day. Mind you, a lot of people take this to mean 6 24 hour days.
2. Anti-Creationism, saying that science "obviously" disproves God, or at the very least disproves the bible, as there is evidence that it's older than the bible says, etc.
3. Interpretations. The bible is a document written by men, and interpreted through multiple minds and languages. God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th could just mean that it "took a while for everything to form, then He waited." Or it could just be some guy wanting justification for a day off... :-)

Personally, I fit more in the last group. I consider myself a Christian, and I do believe that the bible is a useful book, but I don't think anyone ever intended for it to be taken literally. I don't think I have a right to tell God that His days have to be 24 hours as well. :-) Am I a Creationist? I believe that God created the universe, but I don't hold to the 6000 years old, or 6 day event, either.

I agree that the existance of God is outside the realm of science, but I think there are people of both extremes (though I'll admit that if there aren't more people on the Creationist side that are extreme, they are certainly louder) that are trying to force those ideas on others.

I think the GP was thinking much the same way, it's just that people aren't seeing things with the same definition of the word.