Hobbit bones discovered...

[New Tolerance]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6346939/

The remains of 3 feet men found.

[king Royale]

This is the most amazing story of the year involving science. Also check this link out.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4127713 :o

[STI]

Er... is it possible that they were just tiny people?

[Jesus Christ]

no lol
how dare you think like that lol

anyways, this is a very big discovery, im going to research this some more and post what i see

[Vinny Rafarino]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2004, 11:54 PM
Er... is it possible that they were just tiny people?
I think we should clarify that the headline of the story reads "hobbit-sized" people...not actual hobbits.

[Palmares]

They are called Homo floresiensis. What could that possibly mean (small or hobbit in latin?)?

[apathy maybe]

Could it possibly be they are children? Didn't think of that one did you.

[Palmares]

Wrong.


The 3-foot-tall (90-centimeter-tall) adult female skeleton found in a cave is believed 18,000 years old.

[RedAnarchist]

Homo is just a part of the name for a human ( we are homo sapiens) and floriensis because she was found on the Indonesian island of Flores.

[Hate Is Art]

They said the youngest was about about 13,000 years old, which means that she would have been about during very early human times.

I think it paves way for Leprechaun bones to be found in Ireland.

[Severian]

The most interesting thing here just ain't the size - many species become small on islands.

It's the survival of a cousin hominid species up to 12,000 years ago and maybe even more recently. Descendents of Homo Erectus BTW.

Homo Sapiens and Homo Floriensis must have had a fair bit of contact over a long period of time. People in Indonesia have stories/myths about little hairy people in the forest...like little Bigfeet kinda.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Homo is just a part of the name for a human ( we are homo sapiens) and floriensis because she was found on the Indonesian island of Flores.

Wrong.
Homo is our genus. Human is the common name of our species. Homo Sapiens and Homo florensis are two different species. Homo does not mean human.

And they also apparently lived during the same time as cro magnons (homo sapiens) and Neanderthals.

Strange to think that we once lived among (fought?) various species so similar yet different from our own.

[ComradeChris]

I found this very exciting too. One can only assume there is more of them. And about them just being small people: wasn't there distinct skull differences? Like overlapped eye-ridges (sorry, I don't know the technical term; but the ridge above your eye socket). The fact that they also had fire meant they were capable of more advanced thought like the other genura of homo genus.

[Urban Rubble]

I don't have much to add. But damn, that was a weird article. I liked the part about elephants the size of dogs.

[ComradeChris]

Originally posted by Urban [email protected] 9 2004, 02:35 AM
I don't have much to add. But damn, that was a weird article. I liked the part about elephants the size of dogs.
:lol: Pigmy animals are great. I want some :P .

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2004, 06:27 PM
I found this very exciting too. One can only assume there is more of them. And about them just being small people: wasn't there distinct skull differences?
Yes, as you'd expect from descendents of Homo Erectus. Among the skull differences is a smaller braincase (even proportionally) than Homo Sapiens.

Homo Erectus also used fire and stone tools, but the tools found on Flores were more advanced than those used by Homo Erectus. If those tools were made by Homo Floriensis, it raises some interesting questions about their technological progress over time, or whether they learned toolmaking methods from Homo Sapiens.