Whats your views on Homo Floresiensis

Riamfada

Scientists have found skeletons of a hobbit-like species of human that grew no larger than a three-year-old modern child (See pictures). 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.

Australian and Indonesian researchers discovered bones of the miniature humans in a cave on Flores, an island east of Bali and midway between Asia and Australia.

Scientists have determined that the first skeleton they found belongs to a species of human completely new to science. Named Homo floresiensis, after the island on which it was found, the tiny human has also been dubbed by dig workers as the "hobbit," after the tiny creatures from the Lord of the Rings books.
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. The find will be covered in greater detail in a documentary airing early next year on the National Geographic Channel.

"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."

KTRIC

Have you got a link to this artical ?

Sushi

I would like to see the actual paper/journal with all the information and more research before I actually have any real views on Homo floresiensis. I'm still working my way through the problems existing in hominid evolution, although I would like to see where they will fit floresiensis.
I saw an article in the local paper a few months back and thought that the discovery was pretty neat, it's not every day that something involving archaeology/anthropology catches the publics attention.

Wibbs

Sushi wrote:

although I would like to see where they will fit floresiensis.

Homo erectus island adapted(dwarfism), I would have thought. The only problem with that is how did they get there as erectus wasn't thought to have the know how for sea voyages. Then again, floresiensis has a brain that appears too small for stone tool use, yet these were found with the bones. I suspect we've way more stuff to find out about our ancestors, direct or otherwise. I also suspect a lot of the current theories are going to be overturned in the future.

Asiaprod

Wibbs wrote:

Homo erectus island adapted(dwarfism), I would have thought. The only problem with that is how did they get there as erectus wasn't thought to have the know how for sea voyages. Then again, floresiensis has a brain that appears too small for stone tool use, yet these were found with the bones. I suspect we've way more stuff to find out about our ancestors, direct or otherwise. I also suspect a lot of the current theories are going to be overturned in the future.

It appears they may have used fallen trees as rafts, and I am not sure that brain size determins the use of tools. Chimps have small brains yet we know they use tools. I would agree with Dwarfism. There are other examples of it in nature on isolated islands. Also the local myths and stories would appear to support their existence and use of wepons and tools for hunting.

Wibbs

Asiaprod wrote:

It appears they may have used fallen trees as rafts, and I am not sure that brain size determins the use of tools. Chimps have small brains yet we know they use tools.

True, but chimp tools are very rudimentary when compared with erectus or indeed floresiensis stone tools. No comparison really. Chimps don't make hand axes. When an animal with the small brain size of floresiensis apears to make tools that current theories say require a much bigger brain, that kinda shakes things up a bit. One of the central tenets of current human evolution theories is the evolution of a rise in brain size and a concommitant rise in complex behaviour like complex purpose made tools.

Also the local myths and stories would appear to support their existence and use of wepons and tools for hunting.

Very true. What's even cooler is that the local myths have them dying out much later or indeed surviving in deep forest pockets even today.

Asiaprod

Wibbs wrote:

No comparison really. Chimps don't make hand axes. When an animal with the small brain size of floresiensis apears to make tools that current theories say require a much bigger brain, that kinda shakes things up a bit.

Very true. What's even cooler is that the local myths have them dying out much later or indeed surviving in deep forest pockets even today.

Thanks for the lesson, as I said I am an amature and love to learn.
The second part caught my attention too, imagine if they found a real live living hobbit, wow. the knock-on impact would be incredible.