Scientists Hope To Settle "Hobbit" Debate

Several readers wrote in with news of the debate around the identity of an ancient woman whose diminutive skeleton was found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004. Fox News reports that Australian scientists have discovered a subterranean chamber that may contain DNA proof that will settle the question of whether "the Hobbit," as the specimen is called, actually is a representative of a new branch of the human family, or not. The find's discoverers named the putative new race Homo floresiensis. Others in the anthropological field question this identification, arguing that the meter-tall Hobbit was a modern human who had something wrong with her. In a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with one of the original discovery team as co-author, researchers say they have compared the Hobbit's skull to those of modern humans with various ailments such as microcephaly, and that the Hobbit is different.

Teh Effin Summary

[$RANDOMLUSER]

For whatever reason, the summary links to page two of the article. Page one is here [reuters.com]

Re:Trolls too...

[jfclavette]

Why the hell is this modded informative ?

Re:Subject Icon

[Anonymous Coward]

because hobbits are in LOTR you fucking retard.

Re:Get with the answers already!

[edwardpickman]

There really isn't much debate about it. There's dogma about only Homo Sapeins surviving past the Neaderthal extinction then the facts on the other side. The skull looks exactly like a Homo Erectus including the brain case. There are no Homo Sapein skulls no matter how diseased that match it. The brain case scans were the smoking gun. The only thing different from Homo Erectus is the size. She's well below the size range for an adult Erectus so there was a form of downsizing involved since it's unlikely she's an off shoot she's most likely a decendant of Homo Erectus. The fact all the other bones in the cave were of the same size and represent several indiviuals should put to rest it was a disease. I tend to doubt they had a leper colony for individuals with that disease. Her brain size is also proportionally small for an Erectus but the structures are all correct just smaller. It's probably a result of a poor diet that lead to the downsizing. There's resistence to changing the history of hominids but outside of dogma the test thus far have left little doubt the skeleton is not Homo Sapein and most likely a downsized Erectus.

National Geographic settled this last year...

[Mikenotmike]

National Geographic had a whole hour long special on this subject that I watched about 4 or 5 months ago. As the article below states, there was MORE than one set of bones found, while the girl mentioned in today's articles was the only COMPLETE skeleton, there was several other partial bone sets recovered that were equally comparable in size. Also in the documentary they rebuilt the skull and sent it to several specialists, who confirmed that it was in fact not a case of microcephallis. So todays articles seem like old news, AND they're confusing everyone by not mentioning the other bone sets recovered on site. What I haven't seen anyone address is whether they could have been premordial dwarfs... but considering how few of those there are in the world, the likelyhood of several being found in the save small island seems rare, but not unpossible. ~Mentions multiple skeletons... http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/10 27_041027_homo_floresiensis.html [nationalgeographic.com] and the video description http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/channel/blog/20 05/03/explorer_hobbit.html [nationalgeographic.com]

Re:National Geographic settled this last year...

[Nurseferatu]

Actually one form of dwarfism is the result of a genetic mutation and can be inherited. This would make a family of small people a possibility, possibly shunned by the larger group and left on their own. But this would be pretty easy to distinguish due to the distinctive formation of bones that occurs as these children grow.

New Species

[Aneurysm]

According to this [bbc.co.uk] news article from the BBC, it does appear to be a new species. This was posted yesterday and the study compares modern microencephalics skulls with the skulls found on Flores.

Punctuated Equilibrium

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

It sounds like you are talking about punctuated equilibrium or punctuated equilibria. The theory was developed by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould. You wrote that:

>"The idea is that basically, instead of species evolving slowly over time into new species, speciation can occur rapidly (on a geological time scale) and then the new species will remain relatively stable until the next quick burst of change."

That is a good summary. Your other comments are rather off the mark, particularly the idea that there is no advantage to a "half-fin half-leg" and so on. Given that you don't have a background in biology, that's understandable. A good explaination of the theory is here [talkorigins.org] at the talk.origins newsgroup site. A less techinical one is here [wikipedia.org] at the Wikipedia site.