Hobbiton found in Indonesia; Tolkien fans pleased

shbaz · Thu 28/10/2004 01:36:03

Ancient, Tiny Humans Shed New Light on Evolution

QuoteAll Things Considered, October 27, 2004 Â· In a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, scientists have unearthed the bones of a species of human never seen before. About three-feet-tall when fully grown, Homo floresiensis resembles some of our most primitive ancestors -- but lived as recently as 13,000 years ago. They made tools and hunted dwarf elephants, but were physically unlike modern pygmies.

A missing link? The way the article talks, the answer is no.. but it's still interesting.

Thoughts?

Pesty · Thu 28/10/2004 01:38:30

Wow, are you listening to NPR too? I just heard this and just read this article on npr.com. It's an incredibly interesting find, especially from an anthropologist's point of view. I haven't been this happy about a skeleton since I saw Lucy!

shbaz · Thu 28/10/2004 01:46:04

No, but news.google.com has an amazing way of turning up articles that I like to read. I wonder if they track the articles I click with cookies sometimes.

Fuzzpilz · Thu 28/10/2004 02:01:06

My impression from reading this and another article that was posted on Slashdot earlier today is that they don't shed very much light on anything; rather, they shed a lot of "whuh?". It's nice. I'd be amused if people started finding these guys all over the world now, perhaps explaining a lot of all those myths involving dwarves and whatnot, but that wouldn't make a lot of sense and is probably too much to hope. (Why "hope"? Because for some reason it would be awesome if there was another sentient species, even if it's a fairly close relative of ours.)

edmundito · Thu 28/10/2004 02:03:22

Quote from: shbazjinkens on Thu 28/10/2004 01:46:04
No, but news.google.com has an amazing way of turning up articles that I like to read. I wonder if they track the articles I click with cookies sometimes.

So, you go to news.google.com and type "hobbit news" and then click on search?

shbaz · Thu 28/10/2004 02:04:32

Hey, maybe dwarves are the result of intertwined DNA between these people and us! It could happen, right?

No netmonkey, go there, it has a front page and several sub-sections with the most popular (most likely to be liked by me?) news. Ironically, if you actually do that though, this is the first thing that comes up, haha.

Moox · Thu 28/10/2004 02:55:58

That scares me, I just picture little midgets chasing little pink elephents with spears.

A great discovery tho, cant wait to hear what the tabloids have to say about it.

stuh505 · Thu 28/10/2004 03:09:33

don't call them hobbits until we can prove that they have hairy feet and make a killer rice cake

shbaz · Thu 28/10/2004 03:15:50

Quote from: stuh505 on Thu 28/10/2004 03:09:33
don't call them hobbits until we can prove that they have hairy feet and make a killer rice cake

I don't know about the rice cake, but it's likely that they were hairy given their position on the evolution scale and similar size to monkeys.

Moox · Thu 28/10/2004 03:18:41

and the fact that the article calls them hobbits...

Blade · Thu 28/10/2004 13:44:04

But did they live in small one level houses dug in hills with round door? Did they eat much? Did they really really like genealogy?

unlogged Isegrim · Thu 28/10/2004 14:56:21

If you read between the lines of LOTR and the Silmarillion, you'll find that Middle-Earth is indeed our world, but in a very pre-prehistoric way. For example, Numenor is also called "Atalante" or the lost west is called "Avallone"...
There are also some maps which are larger than the one in LOTR and they leave little doubt either.

[conspiracy theory]
So, maybe Tolkien knew a great deal more than we do?
Maybe the "Neanderthals" were in fact Orcs?
Maybe Charles Darwin and Alfred Wegener were forced by some obscure secret institution to explain a false view of the world? (Remember how long the catholic church managed to hide the fact that the world is round!)
If this post gets deleted and I don't post again within the next two weeks, you'll know what happened to me...
[/conspiracy theory]

Seriously, it's always fascinating to see how much we don't know yet...

unlogged Isegrim · Thu 28/10/2004 14:56:43

If you read between the lines of LOTR and the Silmarillion, you'll find that Middle-Earth is indeed our world, but in a very pre-prehistoric way. For example, Numenor is also called "Atalante" or the lost west is called "Avallone"...
There are also some maps which are larger than the one in LOTR and they leave little doubt either.

[conspiracy theory]
So, maybe Tolkien knew a great deal more than we do?
Maybe the "Neanderthals" were in fact Orcs?
Maybe Charles Darwin and Alfred Wegener were forced by some obscure secret institution to explain a false view of the world? (Remember how long the catholic church managed to hide the fact that the world is round!)
If this post gets deleted and I don't post again within the next two weeks, you'll know what happened to me...
[/conspiracy theory]

Seriously, it's always fascinating to see how much we don't know yet...

unlogged Isegrim · Thu 28/10/2004 14:57:34

Arg! got an error-page and tried again... Sorry for double (triple) posting!

Hobbiton found in Indonesia; Tolkien fans pleased

unlogged Isegrim

unlogged Isegrim

unlogged Isegrim