Is Indonesian Flores Man the Original Hobbit?
Although J.R.R Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Hobbit, stands firm as an implacable classic and brilliant work of fiction, a new study conducted by the National Geographic Society which was published in Nature reveals that a hobbit-like species of humans (hominins) may well have been among the early colonizers of the Indonesian island of Flores.
The skeletal remains which were estimated to be some 18,000 years old, and originally discovered a few years ago, represent a species that was formerly unknown to modern science.
Homo floresiensis or Flores man, is said to have stood about one meter tall (3.5 feet) and had a skull the size of a grapefruit.
Island dwarfism is not an uncommon phenomenon both among humans and animal populations, including elephants from islands off the coast of Siberia, California and the Mediterranean Sea.
Given the moniker of “hobbits,” unearthed remains of this small population of toolmakers and hunters of pygmy elephants indicate that they lived simultaneously with full-sized humans (Homo erectus) who were also colonizing the area.
By using new dating methods, researchers have ascertained that the forty-five stone tools found with the remains at Wolo Sege in the Soa basin in Flores date back about one million years.
Scientists have also ascertained some new insight into the mass death of giant tortoises and pygmy elephants (Stegondon sondaari) on the island, which occurred after the arrival of hominins.
“It is now clear… in light of the evidence…that hominins were present on Flores a million years ago. This suggests that the non-selective, mass death of Stegondon sondaari and giant tortoise … could represent a localized or regional extinction,” says Adam Brumm at the Center of Archaeological Science in the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia.”
Still unanswered is the question whether these remains are of Homo sapiens that are smaller for some reason we don’t understand, or if they are indeed a new species, heretofore unknown to the world.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this new find concerns our modern concepts of humanity and how they have become suddenly and permanently altered.
What do YOU think about this?
(Link)
By MDeeDubroff on 05-04-2010
