http://www.physorg.com/news7151.html
Very interesting find, but I am still a little skeptical.
How many specimens are needed to claim that the 'bones provide evidence that H. floresiensis -- small human-like "hobbits" -- were a naturally tiny species, rather than suffering from an abnormally small brain size?'
A few other scientists claim it is only the bones of modern humans that suffered from microencephaly, which is a broadly defined genetic disorder that results in small brain size.
Does anyone have an idea of how many whole and partial individual bones and/or skeletons of this type have been found in the region? Does the ability to walk upright and arm/leg length even give us fair certainty that all of these are indeed human bone structure?
I have had a hard time gathering a summary of what parts/findings exactly have been discovered from the information I have read. In one instance Frodo, himself became the 'Precious' which was squabbled over.
Commentary from anyone following this closer would be appreciated.
In the meantime, keep digging teams.
I saw the Horizon programme on the first dig on Flores, and I must say that the attitudes of those countering the claim of a new subspecies of Hominid are appaling! As if we/they already have all the pieces put together of how we evolved and anything that doesn't fit within that framework must be wrong.. there seems little interest in any other possibility.
This is the worst kind of science, led by blustering types only interested in supporting their own narrow views, a facet of Paleontology which has pervaded from the time of its inception as a science. I cannot bear this small mindedness from people who should be more open...
Personally I think there must be at least some chance that all of the branches of our family tree have not yet been discovered.
This is the worst kind of science, led by blustering types only interested in supporting their own narrow views, a facet of Paleontology which has pervaded from the time of its inception as a science. I cannot bear this small mindedness from people who should be more open...
Personally I think there must be at least some chance that all of the branches of our family tree have not yet been discovered.
ONLY 2 CHOICES - TRUST ME.
Are there really only the two options? New human species or human suffering from Microcephaly?
Do the scientists know all about the diseases present at that time? Have they got fossilised bacteria or viruses from the same period? Could the hobiit be a normal human suffering from an unknown disease other than Microcephaly? One of perhaps a trillion other diseases present at the time that are no longer alive?
Obviously the answer is yes, but apparently since the scientists can never know the answer, they just choose to ignore even the possibility, and stick with what they have got - almost nothing.
SIZE MATTERS.
These scientists state that the hobbit must be too dumb to make the tools present at the site owing to its small brain size. Can they really relate the computational power of the brain occupying the hole in the skull simply by its size? Could there not be various different kinds of brain cells and interwiring possible other than that which exists today? Is it totally impossible that there could have been a mutation which produced a new kind of "super" brain cell that could do more in less space? Not possible? Apparently not.
VANISHINGLY SMALL.
I heard one of the scientists saying that the odds or there being a small group of people in one location affected by Microcephaly as being "vanishingly small" and hence could be discounted. This coming from people who believe in evolution, the science founded on the concept that life was formed at random by billions upon billions of vanishingly small and unlikely incidents? Hmmmm.
Odd how its ok to accept billions of unlikely events, but not one or two. Compared to the likelyhood of the entire web of life having happened by a series of billions of unlikely accidents, the odds of a small group of humans infected by Microcephaly seems all to easy to accept. Either accept both as possible or reject both as impossible. Any other view is surely pure hypocrisy.
SO MANY OTHER OPTIONS.
Were the hobbits as old as they say? Could'nt the teeth have been worn down by the kinds of foods or food processes used at the time? Or could they have had week teeth caused by diet deficiences? The list of other possibilities really is endless, at least to anyone with an open mind.
OUTLANDISH ASSUMPTIONS THE NAME OF THE GAME.
But then I suppose the whole "religion" of palientology is founded on making outlandish assumptions and predictions based on vanishingly tiny amounts of degraded evidence. If they acknowledged the thousands of trilliions of things they do not know and will never know, the whole branch of science would be revealed for what it is - a few grains of fact amid a veritable mountain of more or less pure guesswork.
This whole area of science is structured like the excavations, layer upon layer of assumptions and guesswork, with the fingers firmly crossed every step of the way.
I have an open mind about how intelligent the hobbit could be with its so called small brain, however, the miserably low level of intelligence demonstrated by the so called scientists performing these pathetic investigations is not in any kind of doubt whatsoever.
I
Are there really only the two options? New human species or human suffering from Microcephaly?
Do the scientists know all about the diseases present at that time? Have they got fossilised bacteria or viruses from the same period? Could the hobiit be a normal human suffering from an unknown disease other than Microcephaly? One of perhaps a trillion other diseases present at the time that are no longer alive?
Obviously the answer is yes, but apparently since the scientists can never know the answer, they just choose to ignore even the possibility, and stick with what they have got - almost nothing.
SIZE MATTERS.
These scientists state that the hobbit must be too dumb to make the tools present at the site owing to its small brain size. Can they really relate the computational power of the brain occupying the hole in the skull simply by its size? Could there not be various different kinds of brain cells and interwiring possible other than that which exists today? Is it totally impossible that there could have been a mutation which produced a new kind of "super" brain cell that could do more in less space? Not possible? Apparently not.
VANISHINGLY SMALL.
I heard one of the scientists saying that the odds or there being a small group of people in one location affected by Microcephaly as being "vanishingly small" and hence could be discounted. This coming from people who believe in evolution, the science founded on the concept that life was formed at random by billions upon billions of vanishingly small and unlikely incidents? Hmmmm.
Odd how its ok to accept billions of unlikely events, but not one or two. Compared to the likelyhood of the entire web of life having happened by a series of billions of unlikely accidents, the odds of a small group of humans infected by Microcephaly seems all to easy to accept. Either accept both as possible or reject both as impossible. Any other view is surely pure hypocrisy.
SO MANY OTHER OPTIONS.
Were the hobbits as old as they say? Could'nt the teeth have been worn down by the kinds of foods or food processes used at the time? Or could they have had week teeth caused by diet deficiences? The list of other possibilities really is endless, at least to anyone with an open mind.
OUTLANDISH ASSUMPTIONS THE NAME OF THE GAME.
But then I suppose the whole "religion" of palientology is founded on making outlandish assumptions and predictions based on vanishingly tiny amounts of degraded evidence. If they acknowledged the thousands of trilliions of things they do not know and will never know, the whole branch of science would be revealed for what it is - a few grains of fact amid a veritable mountain of more or less pure guesswork.
This whole area of science is structured like the excavations, layer upon layer of assumptions and guesswork, with the fingers firmly crossed every step of the way.
I have an open mind about how intelligent the hobbit could be with its so called small brain, however, the miserably low level of intelligence demonstrated by the so called scientists performing these pathetic investigations is not in any kind of doubt whatsoever.
I
the bigger organic matter gets the slower its motion...
QUOTE (Issachar+Oct 11 2005, 09:48 PM)
How many specimens are needed to claim that the 'bones provide evidence that H. floresiensis -- small human-like "hobbits" -- were a naturally tiny species, rather than suffering from an abnormally small brain size?'
Does anyone have an idea of how many whole and partial individual bones and/or skeletons of this type have been found in the region? Does the ability to walk upright and arm/leg length even give us fair certainty that all of these are indeed human bone structure?
I have had a hard time gathering a summary of what parts/findings exactly have been discovered from the information I have read.
Hi,
This is the original story in detail:
The tiny humans, who had skulls about the size of grapefruits, lived with pygmy elephants and Komodo dragons on a remote island in Indonesia 18,000 years ago. The original skeleton, a female, stood at just 1 meter (3.3 feet) tall, weighed about 25 kilograms (55 pounds), and was around 30 years old at the time of her death 18,000 years ago.
The skeleton was found in the same sediment deposits on Flores that have also been found to contain stone tools and the bones of dwarf elephants, giant rodents, and Komodo dragons, lizards that can grow to 10 feet (3 meters) and that still live today.
Homo floresienses has been described as one of the most spectacular discoveries in paleoanthropology in half a century—and the most extreme human ever discovered.
The species inhabited Flores as recently as 13,000 years ago, which means it would have lived at the same time as modern humans, scientists say.
"To find that as recently as perhaps 13,000 years ago, there was another upright, bipedal—although small-brained—creature walking the planet at the same time as modern humans is as exciting as it was unexpected," said Peter Brown, a paleoanthropologist at the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia.
Brown is a co-author of the study describing the findings, which appears in the October 28 issue of the science journal Nature. The National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration has sponsored research related to the discovery.
"It is totally unexpected," said Chris Stringer, director of the Human Origins program at the Natural History Museum in London. "To have early humans on the remote island of Flores is surprising enough. That some are only about a meter tall with a chimp-size brain is even more remarkable. That they were still there less than 20,000 years ago, and [that] modern humans must have met them, is astonishing."
The researchers estimate that the tiny people lived on Flores from about 95,000 years ago until at least 13,000 years ago. The scientists base their theory on charred bones and stone tools found on the island. The blades, perforators, points, and other cutting and chopping utensils were apparently used to hunt big game.
In an accompanying Nature commentary, Marta Mirazón Lahr and Robert Foley, both with the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge, England, describe Homo floresiensis as changing our understanding of late human evolutionary geography, biology, and culture
"Homo floresiensis is an addition to the short list of other human species that lived at the same time as modern humans. I think people will be surprised to learn that not so long ago, we were not alone," said Brown.
Lost World of Tiny People
Despite its smaller body size, smaller brain, and mixture of primitive and advanced anatomical features, the new species falls firmly within the genus Homo. The researchers speculate that the hobbit and her peers evolved from a normal-size, island-hopping Homo erectus population that reached Flores around 840,000 years ago.
"Physically, they were about the size of a three-year old Homo sapiens [modern human] child, but with a braincase only one-third as large," said Richard Roberts, a geochronologist at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and one on the co-authors of the research paper. "They had slightly longer arms than us. More conspicuously, they had hard, thicker eyebrow ridges than us, a sharply sloping forehead, and no chin."
"While they don't look like modern humans, some of their behaviors were surprisingly human," said Brown, the study co-author.
The Flores people used fire in hearths for cooking and hunted stegodon, a primitive dwarf elephant found on the island. Although small, the stegodon still weighed about 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds), and would pose a significant challenge to a hunter the size of a three-year-old modern human child. Hunting must have required joint communication and planning, the researchers say.
Almost all of the stegodon bones associated with the human artifacts are of juveniles, suggesting the tiny humans selectively hunted the smallest stegodons. The Flores humans' diets also included fish, frogs, snakes, tortoises, birds, and rodents.
"The hobbit was nobody's fool," Roberts said. "They survived alongside us [Homo sapiens] for at least 30,000 years, and we're not known for being very amiable eco-companions. And the hobbits were managing some extraordinary things—manufacturing sophisticated stone tools, hunting pygmy elephants, and crossing at least two water barriers to reach Flores from mainland Asia—with a brain only one-third the size of ours.
"Given that Homo floresiensis is the smallest human species ever discovered, they out-punch every known human intellectually, pound for pound."
Both the tiny humans and the dwarfed elephants appear to have become extinct at about the same time as the result of a major volcanic eruption.
Mingling of the Human Tribes
There is no evidence of modern humans reaching Flores before 11,000 years ago, so it is unknown whether the hobbit intermingled with modern humans. The researchers found hobbit and pygmy stegodon remains only below a 12,000-year-old volcanic ash layer. Modern human remains were found only above the layer.
Still, rumors, myths, and legends of tiny creatures have swirled around the isolated island for centuries. It's certainly possible that they interacted with modern humans, according to the researchers.
"Looked at from a regional perspective, we definitely have modern humans in Australia from at least 40,000 years ago, and in Borneo from at least 43,000 years ago," Roberts said. "So there was temporal overlap between the hobbits and ourselves from at least 40,000 years ago until at least 18,000 years ago—more than 20,000 years minimum. What was the nature of their interaction? We have absolutely no idea. We need more sites and more hard evidence, and that's the next phase of our investigation."
Island Dwarfing
Researchers are also anxious to investigate how and why the hobbits came to be so small. When scientists discovered the hobbit remains, they thought it was the skeleton of a child. There was no record of human adults that were that small. Modern pygmies are considerably taller at about 1.4 to 1.5 meters (4.6 to nearly 5 feet) tall.
"H. floresiensis presents an intriguing problem in evolutionary biology," Brown said.
The most likely explanation is that, over thousands of years, the species became smaller because environmental conditions favored smaller body size. Dwarfing of mammals on islands is a well-known process and seen worldwide. Islands frequently provide a limited food supply, few predators, and few species competing for the same environmental niche. Survival would depend on minimizing daily energy requirements.
But there is no absolute proof that this is what in fact happened with this small human. (my bold+size)
"While there are stone tools dated as far back as 840,000 years ago, no fossils of large-bodied ancestors have ever been found" on Flores, Brown said. "There is some possibility [Homo floresiensis] arrived on the island small-bodied."
This shows what is believed and modelled:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...s_1/photo6.html
They certainly ARE very quick to find a whole set of collective similarities and conclusions. Simply inconclusive. They suffer much weaknesses of faith.
Thanks.
Does anyone have an idea of how many whole and partial individual bones and/or skeletons of this type have been found in the region? Does the ability to walk upright and arm/leg length even give us fair certainty that all of these are indeed human bone structure?
I have had a hard time gathering a summary of what parts/findings exactly have been discovered from the information I have read.
Hi,
This is the original story in detail:
The tiny humans, who had skulls about the size of grapefruits, lived with pygmy elephants and Komodo dragons on a remote island in Indonesia 18,000 years ago. The original skeleton, a female, stood at just 1 meter (3.3 feet) tall, weighed about 25 kilograms (55 pounds), and was around 30 years old at the time of her death 18,000 years ago.
The skeleton was found in the same sediment deposits on Flores that have also been found to contain stone tools and the bones of dwarf elephants, giant rodents, and Komodo dragons, lizards that can grow to 10 feet (3 meters) and that still live today.
Homo floresienses has been described as one of the most spectacular discoveries in paleoanthropology in half a century—and the most extreme human ever discovered.
The species inhabited Flores as recently as 13,000 years ago, which means it would have lived at the same time as modern humans, scientists say.
"To find that as recently as perhaps 13,000 years ago, there was another upright, bipedal—although small-brained—creature walking the planet at the same time as modern humans is as exciting as it was unexpected," said Peter Brown, a paleoanthropologist at the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia.
Brown is a co-author of the study describing the findings, which appears in the October 28 issue of the science journal Nature. The National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration has sponsored research related to the discovery.
"It is totally unexpected," said Chris Stringer, director of the Human Origins program at the Natural History Museum in London. "To have early humans on the remote island of Flores is surprising enough. That some are only about a meter tall with a chimp-size brain is even more remarkable. That they were still there less than 20,000 years ago, and [that] modern humans must have met them, is astonishing."
The researchers estimate that the tiny people lived on Flores from about 95,000 years ago until at least 13,000 years ago. The scientists base their theory on charred bones and stone tools found on the island. The blades, perforators, points, and other cutting and chopping utensils were apparently used to hunt big game.
In an accompanying Nature commentary, Marta Mirazón Lahr and Robert Foley, both with the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge, England, describe Homo floresiensis as changing our understanding of late human evolutionary geography, biology, and culture
"Homo floresiensis is an addition to the short list of other human species that lived at the same time as modern humans. I think people will be surprised to learn that not so long ago, we were not alone," said Brown.
Lost World of Tiny People
Despite its smaller body size, smaller brain, and mixture of primitive and advanced anatomical features, the new species falls firmly within the genus Homo. The researchers speculate that the hobbit and her peers evolved from a normal-size, island-hopping Homo erectus population that reached Flores around 840,000 years ago.
"Physically, they were about the size of a three-year old Homo sapiens [modern human] child, but with a braincase only one-third as large," said Richard Roberts, a geochronologist at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and one on the co-authors of the research paper. "They had slightly longer arms than us. More conspicuously, they had hard, thicker eyebrow ridges than us, a sharply sloping forehead, and no chin."
"While they don't look like modern humans, some of their behaviors were surprisingly human," said Brown, the study co-author.
The Flores people used fire in hearths for cooking and hunted stegodon, a primitive dwarf elephant found on the island. Although small, the stegodon still weighed about 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds), and would pose a significant challenge to a hunter the size of a three-year-old modern human child. Hunting must have required joint communication and planning, the researchers say.
Almost all of the stegodon bones associated with the human artifacts are of juveniles, suggesting the tiny humans selectively hunted the smallest stegodons. The Flores humans' diets also included fish, frogs, snakes, tortoises, birds, and rodents.
"The hobbit was nobody's fool," Roberts said. "They survived alongside us [Homo sapiens] for at least 30,000 years, and we're not known for being very amiable eco-companions. And the hobbits were managing some extraordinary things—manufacturing sophisticated stone tools, hunting pygmy elephants, and crossing at least two water barriers to reach Flores from mainland Asia—with a brain only one-third the size of ours.
"Given that Homo floresiensis is the smallest human species ever discovered, they out-punch every known human intellectually, pound for pound."
Both the tiny humans and the dwarfed elephants appear to have become extinct at about the same time as the result of a major volcanic eruption.
Mingling of the Human Tribes
There is no evidence of modern humans reaching Flores before 11,000 years ago, so it is unknown whether the hobbit intermingled with modern humans. The researchers found hobbit and pygmy stegodon remains only below a 12,000-year-old volcanic ash layer. Modern human remains were found only above the layer.
Still, rumors, myths, and legends of tiny creatures have swirled around the isolated island for centuries. It's certainly possible that they interacted with modern humans, according to the researchers.
"Looked at from a regional perspective, we definitely have modern humans in Australia from at least 40,000 years ago, and in Borneo from at least 43,000 years ago," Roberts said. "So there was temporal overlap between the hobbits and ourselves from at least 40,000 years ago until at least 18,000 years ago—more than 20,000 years minimum. What was the nature of their interaction? We have absolutely no idea. We need more sites and more hard evidence, and that's the next phase of our investigation."
Island Dwarfing
Researchers are also anxious to investigate how and why the hobbits came to be so small. When scientists discovered the hobbit remains, they thought it was the skeleton of a child. There was no record of human adults that were that small. Modern pygmies are considerably taller at about 1.4 to 1.5 meters (4.6 to nearly 5 feet) tall.
"H. floresiensis presents an intriguing problem in evolutionary biology," Brown said.
The most likely explanation is that, over thousands of years, the species became smaller because environmental conditions favored smaller body size. Dwarfing of mammals on islands is a well-known process and seen worldwide. Islands frequently provide a limited food supply, few predators, and few species competing for the same environmental niche. Survival would depend on minimizing daily energy requirements.
But there is no absolute proof that this is what in fact happened with this small human. (my bold+size)
"While there are stone tools dated as far back as 840,000 years ago, no fossils of large-bodied ancestors have ever been found" on Flores, Brown said. "There is some possibility [Homo floresiensis] arrived on the island small-bodied."
This shows what is believed and modelled:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...s_1/photo6.html
They certainly ARE very quick to find a whole set of collective similarities and conclusions. Simply inconclusive. They suffer much weaknesses of faith.
Thanks.
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