Hobbits Again

[Minimalist]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8036396.stm

Scientists have found more evidence that the Indonesian "Hobbit" skeletons belong to a new species of human - and not modern pygmies.

The 3ft (one metre) tall, 30kg (65lbs) humans roamed the Indonesian island of Flores, perhaps up to 8,000 years ago.

[/quote]

[Minimalist]

Y un poco mas.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/552064/

The authors point out that the Hobbit foot has a relative foot length that far exceeds the upper limits for modern humans either of average or short stature. The foot is similar in relative length to pygmy chimpanzees, with long and curved toes, but also sports a short big toe in line with the other toes. While the foot has an overall structure that signals bipedal walking, it appears to have been “flat-footed” and poorly designed for running, one of the critical pedal features believed to characterize human ancesters since the time of Homo erectus.

[Minimalist]

Hobbits Redux

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009 ... 643415.htm

The debate has raged ever since. But Debbie Argue, a PhD student from the ANU's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, believes she has settled the question by comparing bone fragments from the hobbits to other hominids.

"We compared them to almost every species in our genus, as well as Australopithecine, which was a genus before Homo evolved," Ms Argue said.

"Of course, we included Homo sapiens.

"We discovered that Homo floresiensis ranged off the family tree almost at the beginning of the evolution of our genus, Homo.

"So that would have been over two million years ago, and as such a very, very primitive being."

[Rokcet Scientist]

"So that would have been over two million years ago, and as such a very, very primitive being."

Over two million years ago in Flores...?
Even HE had 'only' made it to the Caucasus by 1,8 million years BCE.
But a derivative genus had made it 20 times as far and then got isolated?
How? By what?
Hmmm.
We need paleogeology here. What happened in Indonesia 2 million years ago? What did the landscape look like.
I'm guessing it wasn't much different from today. It was and is on top of a tectonic subduction zone. So it's got many dozens of very active volcanoes. It is the land of Toba and Krakatoa. Always has been. Continuously changing. In flux. Islands popped up, grew, connected, and disintegrated all that time over and over again. In a very humid atmosphere and the highest annual rainfall on the globe it is super fertile countryside. Anything will grow there. Like mad. Flora and fauna. 4/5 Harvests a year is no big deal.
Seems unlikely you can stay isolated for two whole million years in such a dynamic place in flux. Geophysically speaking.

And what about the Aboriginals? They passed along Flores on their epic trip to Oz, no? So then they must have stories of little people in their oral history. But then, what people doesn't?

[dannan14]

2mya was the estimate for when HF broke away from the direct line of HSS. They're only saying 120kya for HF in Flores.

[Rokcet Scientist]

2mya was the estimate for when HF broke away from the direct line of HSS. They're only saying 120kya for HF in Flores.

So HF walked 30,000 kilometers from Africa to Flores across mountains and deserts as a 3 foot dwarf? On those feet that were not very well adapted to long distance coverage?

Hmmm... Seems unlikely, at the very least, doesn't it?

Or was he a 'normal height' homo and did he shrink only, and morph his feet, after he got to Flores? No, it can't be that, because if concensus is that HF is a separate genus, then he is probably not a form of island dwarfism, is he? Or is HF both? Both a separate genus of homo and dwarfed after he got to Flores?

And if it took took HF almost 2 million years (less 120 thousand years) to get to Flores, his parents, and grandparents ought to be buried along the route from Africa to Flores, no? Let's go find them then!
Isn't it strange that all the different homo species originated in Africa and that they and their successors were found just about everywhere in Asia, Europe, and, eventually, the Americas, while the genus HF only appears on a small island in Indonesia? Nowhere else in Africa, Asia, or Europe?!

And if HF got to Flores 120kya then he got there twice as long ago – on those, let's say 'limited feet'! – as the Aboriginals did on 'normal feet'...?
I would consider that quite a 'feat'.

Hmmm... Another unlikely scenario, imo.

[archaeo]

... So HF walked 30,000 kilometers from Africa to Flores across mountains and deserts as a 3 foot dwarf? On those feet that were not very well adapted to long distance coverage?

Hmmm... Seems unlikely, at the very least, doesn't it?....

This is a fallacious argument.
Time is a very large dimension and the earth is a very small planet.
How far does each generation need to move for a species to move 30,000 km in a million years?
Have you demonstrated the species originated in Africa?

[Minimalist]

Even the subject of the article does not doubt that species arose in Africa.

Ms Argue says her work challenges another major cornerstone in the theory of human evolution.

"This means that something very, very primitive came out of Africa," she said.

IT seems that what she is suggesting is that much of the future evolution took place elsewhere.

[Minimalist]

And a follow up.....


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 32,00.html

THE identity of the tiny human-like creature discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004 has become clearer -- and more astonishing -- thanks to a new analysis by Australian and Indonesian scientists.

According to a team led by Australian National University doctoral student Debbie Argue, not only is Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the hobbit, not a deformed modern human, as a handful of critics claim, but the small-brained, long-armed biped was the first human-like creature to walk out of Africa.

And it did so nearly two million years ago, roughly 100,000 years before a species most scientists believed was the first migrant. That was a somewhat more modern hominin -- a member of a group including humans and their ancestors -- that was discovered in Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia, variously identified as H.georgicus, H. ergaster or H. erectus.

Can't wait.

[kbs2244]

What will it take to kill
"Out of Africia?"

[Minimalist]

A stake through the heart?

[Rokcet Scientist]

Why would it need to die? Most of successive hominid lineages and branches did come out of Africa. Only not all at the same time as a sort of Cecil B. DeMille type mass crossing of the Red Sea. In fact none at the same time as any of the others. But they did come out of Africa!

[Minimalist]

Well...OOA is the whole ball of wax about HSS launching a blitzkrieg across the Red Sea (but at low tide because they didn't have boats) und taking uber der whole vorld....

OOA never pretended to include HE let alone anything earlier.

[jw1815]

Why would it need to die? Most of successive hominid lineages and branches did come out of Africa. Only not all at the same time as a sort of Cecil B. DeMille type mass crossing of the Red Sea. In fact none at the same time as any of the others. But they did come out of Africa!

RS

I don't want to put words in anyone else's mouth, but I think the objection to OOA is not against Africa as the source of humans, but against the idea that the latest wave - HSS - replaced all earlier ones, with no evolution of earlier ones and intermixing of them with HSS.

I've got my doubts about OOA myself. Could the evolution of other animals shed some light on the likelihood of intermixing of offshoots during various stages of evolution? I know there's a long fossil record on the evolution of horses, but don't know the record well. Since some equine offshoots are still able to breed today, even though they produce sterile offspring, I wonder if variations along the evolutionary route intermixed successfully, with fertile offspring contributing to the evolutionary development.

[Minimalist]

but against the idea that the latest wave - HSS - replaced all earlier ones, with no evolution of earlier ones and intermixing of them with HSS.

Absolutely. Homo Erectus has a lot of fans around here but no one suggests he did not originate in Africa.