Four years ago, on a remote Indonesian island, fossilised remains were found of a metre-tall people whom the anthropologists dubbed hobbits after JRR Tolkien’s invention.
The hominids lived around 18,000 years ago and there is now a debate raging as to whether the hobbit were, like our ancestors, Homo sapiens but stunted and retarded due to iodine deficiency in pregnancy or that they were a brand new species called Homo floresiensis.
To read the full article on this subject, The New Straits Times Online explains the debate in full - http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/Focus/20080322153547/Article/index_html
March 24th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Unfortunately, the likes of the late Dr. Teuku Jacob and Dr. Berger’s Palau find continue to muck the proverbial academic waters with their own murky agendas. No wonder the creationists feel so emboldened nowadays when they observe evolutionary scientists continuously getting embroiled in a pissing contest of personal egos. As Dr. Junger from SUNY Stony Brook said the Palau find is “is really much ado about nothing.” I guess the fact that none of the Palau bones found match the hobbits except for some superficial features really doesn’t matter. After all, the frontal cranium looks almost as high as a human’s but hey Dr. Berger implies some commonality with Homo floresiensis. Damn, can’t we complete a dig before we report the findings nowadays?
Of course, I have a vested interest in this discovery, having written a speculative fiction novel called Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot on the recent fossil find. If you are interested, there is more on this ongoing controversy about Homo floresiensis at http://www.floresgirl.com or catch the free Flores Girl podcast at Podiobooks.com.
Erik John Bertel