"Hobbits" Were Separate Species, Skull Suggests

[n2doc]

John Roach
for National Geographic News
January 23, 2009

The skull of the so-called hobbit discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 suggests its owner was an archaic human ancestor, not a diminutive or diseased modern human, according to a new study.

The conclusion stems from a comparison of the skull to the noggins of modern humans and apes, as well as the fossil brain cases of early human ancestors.

"The shape of the skull is consistent with what we would expect for a small archaic Homo," said Karen Baab, a biological anthropologist at Stony Brook University in New York State. The genus Homo includes modern human beings as well as close relatives like Neanderthals and Home erectus.

Baab is the lead author of the study, published online in the Journal of Human Evolution.

more:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090123-hobbit-skull.html

[hobbit709]

1. I could have told them that!

:rofl:

[frogmarch]

2. And the debate rages on.

Thanks for posting this. Fascinating!

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Bad wording from Nat. Geographic - not an 'ancestor', but a descendant of an ancestor

Better described here:

“A skull can provide researchers with a lot of important information about a fossil species, particularly regarding their evolutionary relationships to other fossil species,” explains Dr. Baab. “The overall shape of the LB1 skull, particularly the part that surrounds the brain (neurocranium) looks similar to fossils more than 1.5 million years older from Africa and Eurasia, rather than modern humans, even though Homo floresiensis is documented from 17,000 to 95,000 years ago.”
...
Dr. Baab recognizes that the controversy as to the evolutionary origins of Homo floresiensis will continue, perhaps without an answer. However, all the evidence that she and colleagues illustrate in their article “Size, shape, and asymmetry in fossil hominins: The status of the LB1cranium based on 3D morphometric analyses,” suggest that Homo floresiensis was most likely the diminutive descendant of a species of archaic Homo.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090120144508.htm

The point being that they're not claiming we're descended from these inhabitants of Flores.

[xchrom]

4. who you callin a small archaic homo? nt