Talk:Homo floresiensis

Note that the National Geographic headline '"Hobbit" Discovered: Tiny Human Ancestor Found in Asia' is positively misleading, as there is no proof at all that, even if H. floresiensis is confirmed to be a true new species, that they were ancestors of H. sapiens. I'm removing the link, as the New Scientist one seems much better. -- Anon.

It is a very poor title, since no one is even claiming they are our ancestors, in fact quite the opposite. It should say "Tiny Human Cousins" or somesuch. But it does happen to be one of the better articles, since as it points out it was an expedition partly funded by NG. --Eean 05:24, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The National Geographic headline seems to be using "ancestor" in the non-scientific sense of "forerunner" (merriam-webster). In that sense I think their usage is more or less correct in the popular context, although many will probably feel they should be using it according to the more scientific usage. --Nectarflowed 10:43, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But the really interesting thing about this discovery is that they were not forerunners, but actually (possibly) lived at the same time as the anatomically modern human (only in another part of the world, or possibly even in the same environment as Homo sapiens). — David Remahl 10:54, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone know when this discovery was made? (by the way, I'm the original author of this article - wasn't logged in at the time.) --Sum0 18:46, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I heard that they waited almost a year before publishing it. But I don't know wether that means early 2004 or late 2003. Is anyone a Nature subscriber? — David Remahl 10:56, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This has got to be the science story of the year, yet it isn't on the front page. - Xed 20:13, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good point, although I'm sure it'll be there in the next day or so. ALso congreatualtions to all contributors for getting such an importnant and informative article up so quickly. Lisiate 20:24, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why wait? Even though Main Page is protected, the page that you wnat to edit is Template:In the news. (I have done so.) -- Toby Bartels 22:29, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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The BBC article says that the remains aren't fossilised, and might possibly yield DNA... Our front page and this article say that the remains are fossilised. Can someone try to find out which is right and correct our article if necessary? fabiform | talk 22:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Just for the record: The front page says it only because our article says it. -- Toby Bartels 23:10, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nature's own news site agrees that they're not fossils. I will edit accordingly. -- Toby Bartels 23:40, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cheers Toby, good investigative work. :) fabiform | talk 23:51, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! (Although I forgot to fix the box on the Main Page!) -- Toby Bartels 02:36, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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"The isolated position of Flores suggests that the ancestors of H. floresiensis may have reached the island by boat around 100,000 years ago, suggesting a hitherto unsuspected technological capability."

I believe this is incorrect.... The term used to describe the process by which the H. floresiensis may have landed on the island, "rafting", has nothing to do with boats. Rafting means that a piece of some mainland broke off due to some geological process (a mudslide is a possibility), and literally turned into a giant floating raft, carrying plants and animals to whatever it crashes into. (These natural "rafts" can be several kilometers across...) As an extra note, it's possible that certain features of the H. floresiensis can be explained by the Founder effect (although it should be noted that their small size is not thought to be because of this.) Could someone please correct this (if they also believe it to be incorrect)? --GameGod 19:10, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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Nickname

It took me a little bit to figure out whether the nickname "hobbit" was the creation of the popular press. Some of them gave citations like "the dig crew", but I didn't see anything convincing until about a third of the way down [1], where the name is used in a quotation by one of the Nature coauthors. I mention this in case anybody else has the same suspicions that I had. -- Toby Bartels 23:06, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

IMO it's an unfortunate nickname (but should get little kids world-wide excited). A-giau 03:09, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd be interested to know why you think it's unfortunate. It seems appropriate to me; my only complaint is that it's too culturally specific. (It would be perfect if they'd been discovered in Warwickshire.) -- Toby Bartels 05:38, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Indonesia is also a fitting location for finding hobbits. Departing from Middle Earth by boat and circumnavigating Australia, one will naturally arrive in some part of Indonesia, whereupon the traveler would likely be set upon by dragons. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 13:12, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't like the nickname and I don't think we should be promoting it on Wikipedia, though a mention in a section on media coverage would be justified. It merges fact and fiction in the popular consciousness and is better suited to soundbite journalism. — Trilobite (coming to you from Warwickshire!) 22:02, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A comparison

Intelligence

The sample seems to be a little over half the height of modern humans, this should mean about 12.5% the body mass. Which would give it twice the brain to body ration of modern man about 4% on the following scale[2].

Species. Brain Weight as % of Body Weight

• human 2.10
• bottlenose dolphin 0.94
• African elephant 0.15
• killer whale 0.09
• cow 0.08
• sperm whale (male) 0.02
• fin whale 0.01

Which put a bit of a diiferent slant on it all.--Jirate 00:58, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

See Brain to body mass ratio and encephalization quotient[3]--Jirate 01:21, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

• Ah. So they'd be elves, not hobbits. -- The Anome 01:46, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Now, who says Hobbits are less intelligent than Men? Less intelligent than Dunedain, sure; certainly much less intelligent than Wizards (who are not Men at all in fact). But just because the Hobbits were the stupidest main characters in LotR doesn't change the fact that well-bred-but-ordinary Hobbits certainly held their own in the company of well-bred-but-ordinary Men (like the stewardic house of Gondor, or the royal house of Rohan, but not the royal house of Gondor which was Dunedain). Sure, Gandalf makes Pippin look foolish often enough, but who's to say you or I wouldn't look twice as foolish in the same circumstances (which is to say, in conversation with an angel)? -- Toby Bartels 02:34, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Nope, as far as intelligence they were neither hobbits or elves. a good graph Since they evolved from homo erectus, I guess that means they actually got less smart, probably because brains require so many calories. --Eean 05:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The problem with the graph is it's relating a 1D height to a 3D volume, which would seem to be a mistake.--Jirate 13:33, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

Um, its a pretty common graph when you have two sets of data that relate to something else. Like PC Magazine will have one axis be the price and the other axis be the permforance of the computer, so then the closer a computers dot is to one of the corners means the computer has the more bang-for-the-buck. Not hard to understand. This graph is the same idea. More importantly, it clearly shows they didn't a body-mass ratio as high as you thought. I'm sure its talking about height and not mass (or a "3d volume" as opposed to a 2d volume I suppose) since any mass would just be a guess at this point. You decided on their mass based entirely on their height, so I don't see how you could complain. --Eean 15:10, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't quote a computer magazine as a good example I made of how to represent numbers. I estimated based on a 50% value to make the maths easier, thats the only "mistake" I made. The real relationship is between one value and the cube of the other as no animal is restricted to just 1 dimension. Inceidentily in 4d maths, 4d objects have 4d volume, a 2d object is known as a surface.--Jirate 19:13, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)

Why the hell are we talking about 4d math. I guess I should remember Doc, who would say "your not thinking 4th dimensionally." Anyways, I'll take Nature's word for it, that at least based on current evidence (which is to say, we hardly know crap about the brain), H. Floresiensis wasn't that smart compared to erectus and sapien. Which makes sense, given that brains need a bunch of energy, and the theory of why they are short is because they don't have much food. Being smart has a lot of advantages, everything would be smart if it was easy. --Eean 06:16, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This graph is a useful illustration of brain mass and height, but that information alone does not indicate anything about intelligence. The encephalization quotient is a ratio of masses only. Dimensions of any sort are completely irrelevant. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 11:29, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. I thought Encephalization Quotient was now regarded as at best a gross oversimplification. It has these little problems like concluding that the sparrow and mouse (and indeed any very small warm blooded animal) are enormously more intelligent than the primates and cetaceans. At any rate, if you want to take a wild guesstimate of the intelligence of H. floresiensis, absent having yet identified any of their artifacts I would think a more productive approach would be to look for primates with similar statistics. In this case, the brain pan volume turns out to be about 10% larger than the average for the chimpanzee, and the body length very similar (identical within the accuracy of the available data). So with all due caveats about the reliability of this process, from this we might conclude that these hominids would be slightly more intelligent than chimps, but not much. Securiger 15:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It is allegedly better to go messure the exit at the base of the skull rather then use body mass, but I can't find any site with that info. CQ is also better but that would require knowing brain anatomy.--Jirate 19:59, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

Here is a link to an article that discusses their toolmaking abilities. [4] It suggests that modern people on the island copied their tools.

There's no need to try to guess the mass of H. floresiensis based on their height; the article states it was around 25kg. Especially given their height is one meter; one need only refer to the healthy body mass index range. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 11:22, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Importance

Not to understate the importance of the discovery, but the statement

The discovery is considered to be the most important of its kind in recent memory.

is so vague as to be almost meaningless. Considered by whom? What kind? How recent?

• Small aside: apparently the WP term for this is "Peacock terms": Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms. Securiger 15:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't know enough about the big picture in paleoanthropology to put the discoveries in perspective, but I am thinking in particular of the recent discovery of hundreds of fossil speciments of a new homo species (homo antecessor) in Atapuerca, Spain. — Miguel 02:59, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

There are two things that make this find bigger than that find:

• H. antecessor pushes the boundaries of the Homo timeline even better than H. floresiensis does (since H. sapiens still forms the recent limit). But it pushes the boundaries in the less interesting direction (that is, far from us, who are the centre of our unverse).
• These are frickin' little people, man! They're actually real!!! This is as exciting as the discovery of Troy, only with yet more universal significance. From a scientific perspective, this may only be "very important", but to humankind in general, this will be HUGE.

That said, you're right that this kind of vague claim is meaningless. Somebody should have said this, and that somebody should be cited. -- Toby Bartels 05:31, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I listened to a radio program a few minutes ago (Swedish Radio). This is a quote:

— According to my assessment, this is one of the most sensational scientific discoveries made in the last half-century. No-one could have imagined a finding like this, says Lars Werdelin, senior curator (associate professor) in paleontology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden.

I bet there are people who's opinions matter more in the world of paleontology, but at least it proves that the claim made does have some support. — David Remahl 05:35, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What with Cassini's Titan encounter it looks like a very important day, John Peel must be pissed of at missing.--Jirate 13:35, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

Don't forget the lunar eclipse! :-). — David Remahl 17:08, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mythical? creatures

"The island had dwarf elephants and giant lizards"

Not only hobbits, but also dragons??? -- Toby Bartels (although I didn't think of it) 05:13, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And oliphaunts! I just want to congratulate Wikipedia on making such a good article in one day. RickK 06:21, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Yes! My thought exactly! Compare that to a Google-search. For the record, that link produces zero results at the moment (though there are some Google News references). — David Remahl 06:46, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think the paucity of Google hits is due to the lag time involved in Google recording new pages, and this is a very new news item. RickK 07:30, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Yep..The database is replaced every three or four days or something like that, according to my casual observations. — David Remahl 07:33, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

According to our Flores article, the Komodo dragon can be found on Flores. Are these the giant lizards they are talking about? Can Komodos be dated back to be contemporaries of H. floresiensis? If so, I would imagine Komodos would make a dangerous predator of the poor little fellas. Dragons indeed! Securiger 15:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Komodos are pretty slow and have to bask in the sun, so they are probably pretty easy to evade if you know what you're doing. I read that the Homo flores actually ate the Komodos. RickK 22:40, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Komodos are primarily ambush hunters (and NOT so slow in short bursts!) -- so it would be inevitable that even experienced Hobbinids would have occassionally gotten bushwhacked. So I would expect that this would make them pretty careful, slow, deliberate and observant in their movements. Which would explain their being so hard for even local villagers to run into, even on a middling one-mountain-chain island.

As for who ate whom: I'm sure a Hobbinid -- being a typical pygmy of a relatively resource-poor environment (I would guess the dry season would be the crunch-time here) -- would very much look forward to returning the favor whenever they ran across smaller komodos; and I don't see why a smart, cooperative hunter like H. Floresiensis, living among komodos for millenia, wouldn't have perfected some method of luring and killing even the bigger monitor lizards: having one of their members act as 'bait' -- the others lying in wait in their own ambush, etc...

Pazouzou 06:38, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Some of the articles state that there were other lizards on this island that were even bigger than the Komodo Dragon (and lived at the same time as the "hobbits") but have died out. The articles didn't have a name for this creature does anyone have any information on these? - Anon

• it was a related species, but somewhat larger (regular Komodo Dragons also lived there)--Pharos 07:43, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ebu Gogo

I get zero google hits on Ebu Gogo too. It can't be a very widespread piece of myth...Where's the reference for that? I find this in the Telegraph. Can we find an independent source for this (i.e. not related to the article authors)? — David Remahl 07:10, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It will be interesting to see what they find in the DNA from the hair samples. - Anon

• This is a rather obscure, small and very isolated tribe. I'm not surprised they haven't uploaded their complete mythos to a high bandwidth web server.--Pharos 14:31, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • This is very interesting. It would be nice if we could get some harder data on this. From my reading of the abstracts in Nature, it seems that the claim of extinction 12,000 years ago is based solely on the absence of evidence from one site. Given that, the Ebu Gogo folklore might be considered prima facie evidence for a much more recent extinction (or even continued existence, given the wildness of the Flores interior.) Securiger 15:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • The researchers believe that the hominids in the particular site they were studying were wiped out about 12,000 years ago by a local volcanic eruption that also marks the disappearance of other species there. One of the authors has also speculated that is is possible, though "not likely", that surviving hominids of this or similar types might be found on Flores or other Southeast Asian islands.--146.245.185.20 16:58, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There are no Web references to Ebu Gogo prior to the release of the floresensis story, but now there are several. I wonder how reliable they are? See http://www.zen19725.zen.co.uk/weblog/art_311.html, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/28/whuman228.xml, http://finance.news.com.au/common/story_page/0%2C4057%2C11206118%255E462%2C00.html, http://www.timboucher.com/journal/ for example. RickK 08:52, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)

How did the Hobbit reach Flores?

The article says "The isolated position of Flores suggests that the ancestors of H. floresiensis may have reached the island by boat around 100,000 years ago, suggesting a hitherto unsuspected technological capability.".
- But could its ancestors have reached Flores overland when the world sea level was much lower in the Ice Age? Or by sea by chance dispersal on trees uprooted and blown out to sea in a storm?

• There has always been a deep trench between Flores and neighboring areas which were united by the low sea levels of the ice age.Italic text
• I agree. Concluding that they came by boat is wild speculation. There are many species on these islands, and obviously most of them did not arrive by boat. Speculating that H. floresiensis were boat builders before even establishing if they were tool makers is drawing a very long bow. However if the date of arrival is correct it would not have been by land-bridge, as 100,000 years ago was the middle of the Eemian interglacial era. OTOH I don't know how firm that age is at this point. Securiger 15:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think this Guardian article addresses most concerns. It describes the island as having been an island for a million years. "The implication was that the toolmakers, presumably Homo erectus, were capable of navigating the open sea. It is possible that once marooned on Flores, a population of Homo erectus set its own evolutionary course, morphing into Homo floresiensis." --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 17:02, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This article [5] addresses the same issue, citing the discovery on Flores of what are thought to be H. erectus stone tools dating to around 800,000 years ago:

"During the ice ages, sea level was sometimes so low that Java was connected to the Asian mainland. But between Java and Flores lie three straits too deep to have dried out during glacial periods, one of which was more than 15 miles wide. "It's a pretty formidable water crossing," Morwood says. "The vast majority of animals didn't make it." But early humans did." -- ChrisO 17:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's pretty obvious, generally, what happened, really. I can easily imagine these people looking over the strait at this beckoning new land and thinking constantly about getting over there. New sources of food is always a consideration. I doubt they would have even considered an actual trip, however, without knowing how to cross smaller bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes and maybe trips to nearby islands -- trips measured in yards...

How they actually accomplished it -- who really knows; but only a simple reed/stick/log/bamboo raft really makes any sense. No dugouts, please! And I think a certain point discussed in the articles is being overlooked too: were they small before they got there? The suggestion is that they weren't pygmy-ized until they got themselves isolated -- so we're not talking about "little people" building rafts here -- we're talking about "normal" H. Erectus.

Pazouzou 07:14, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Flores is on the other side of the Wallace line, which is a line which separates Autralian/New Guinean fauna from Asian fauna. The line indicates a significant water barrier unaffected by sea-level change. The line is named after Alfred Russel Wallace and there is more information and a rough map of the line on that WP page.

There are a lot of typhoons in that area, is it possible that they may have been in a tree picking fruit or hiding from a predator and a typhoon picked them up and dumped them in the ocean but closer to the next island. They then swam over to some branches and then paddled or floated to the next island and some of them survived the trip. - Anon

Why were they so short?

On the radio I heard that the reason why they were so short, was that isolated populations decrease in size for survival and that lack of food also is an explanation. But I have also heard that inbreed (or homozygoty) causes smaller offspring than outbreed (heterozygoty). Does anyone know?

• I reckon they just found a child's skeleton. No big deal really. Hobbits, schmobbits I say--194.167.114.2 14:18, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• • They found five skeletons, and if they say the most complete is an adult female, thy know what they are talking about. The bones of a child have cartilaginous ends, for instance, to allow for growth. — Miguel 15:52, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

• There was limited food availability on the little island which drove the size reduction, the changes being allowed, but not caused by the isolation of the population. The suture pattern on the skull indicates a 30-year old.--Pharos 14:31, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• It's not a child. Follow the links to the Nature articles. As well as fragmentary parts of seven other individuals, they found a complete skeleton and skull, with adult dentition. (The article also has a picture of the skull, which is really well preserved. It's very human-like, but it's not quite human.) Securiger 15:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In all the papers I have red, they say that there has been an adaption to the food availability. But still, doesn't inbreed normally cause smaller offspring?

• • I don't see a reason why it should, but as I said isolated populations do have a general tendency to develop in unusual ways.--146.245.185.20 16:53, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here, it is called inbreeding depression, quote from a site about breeding cats: "Robinson (1988) also stated that inbreeding depression may effect almost any feature or characteristic. This could include a decline in birth weight, lethargic kittens and poor growth rates.

Also the size of the tools they found proves that it wasn't a child. The tools were tiny and could not have been made by just one child - Anon

"See also Pygmies"

Why put links to Pygmies, Twa etc. Pygmies are modern humans, and are as unrelated to Flores man as the average European. It's like putting a link to Americans in the Neanderthal article. - Xed 11:08, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps to compare sizes? As the pygmies are the smallest non-pathological adult H. sapiens, yet H. floresiensis is only 2/3 the size. Securiger 15:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK, I'll put a link to Americans in the Neanderthal article. -Xed 15:32, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

With only one skeleton being discovered, isn't there a possibility that this is an abnoral Flores man (eg a 30 year old dwarf) and that the average Flores man was of much greater height?

Actually 6 have been found. From the skeleton you can usually tell age as various joints fuse as we get older. Atleast accroding to what I've seen on Timeteam--Jirate 14:53, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

• The Pygmies link does make some sense. I was just talking with my professor in a World Prehistory class and he thought, admittedly before he had seen all the evidence, that they might just be a group of very pygmified modern humans with some primitive-looking facial features like brow ridges, which are not uncommon among modern Australian aborigines.--146.245.185.20 16:50, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It is very unlikely that H. floresiensis is descended from H. sapiens. Their brains are too small. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 12:15, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think the link is offending - delete it. Will this discovery effect the way we see short persons too - are they more prehistoric or waht???

• No, I just meant that they might be modern humans, which is my professor's idea. In that case they represent a very extreme dwarfing of Homo Sapiens, like in Pygmies or Andaman Islanders but only more so. Not they they would not be particularly genetically related to Pygmies, only adapted similarly. I don't know if this is an idea others have had, but I wouldn't be surprised if we hear such skepticism of the new species in the coming days and weeks.--146.245.185.20 17:19, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Note the recently inserted "not". The above comment was made by myself earlier, a newbie who had forgotten to log on. I hope my typo didn't confuse anyone.--Pharos 07:11, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The current article says "Pygmy — note that they are members of the Homo sapiens species". Should this important information be put on the article about Belgians as well? - Xed 23:56, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have to say I thought Xed was trolling or something with what appears to be a complete reversal of position after someone made an edit to satisfy the previous position; but I assumed good faith and tried to work out what the point is. I think - and please correct me if I'm wrong here Xed - that Xed feels that the reference to pygmies is somehow implying that pygmies are subhuman. Of course that is not the intention at all, and the editor who added the "note that they are" comment was perhaps trying to respond to Xed's concerns by clarifying that. But Xed is even more offended now because it should not be necessary to state that pygmies are human. To avoid further confusion, I propose the reference to pygmies be removed from "see also" and made into its own paragraph, so that the inclusion can be fully explained. Something like:

Comparison to small modern humans

H. floresiensis is tiny compared to modern humans. The estimated height for an adult H. floresiensis, at 1 m, is considerably smaller than the normal adult height of the shortest phenotypes of modern humans, such as the pygmies (< 1.5 m), Twa, Semang (1.37 m for adult women), or Andamanese (1.37 m for adult women). They were also considerably shorter than the typical adult height for the most common form of pathological dwarfism, achondroplasia (1.2 m).

only better written. Would that satisfy everyone? Securiger 01:19, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's so much better. Though I think pygmies prefer to be called Bayaka (which refers to the group not just by their height), but i'm not sure if that's a term used by all pygmies in all regions, and "pygmy" does seem to be the common term. --Pengo 11:19, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Pygmies are one of several groups of humans (the others that I know of are Eskimoes and Gypsies) that humans in general find natural to classify as a group, while the groups that they themselves identify with are smaller (Bayaka, Inuit, Romany, for example); with the result that the only name for the entire group is imposed by foreigners, generally considered derogatory, and insensitive to the nature of the relevant culture. My advice: Never call anybody "Pygmy", "Eskimo", or "Gypsy" if you know a more specific term that applies to that person. (In live conversation, don't take the risk: ask. But this last bit is only theoretical; I have never met a Pygmy, Eskimo, or Gypsy.) -- Toby Bartels 23:25, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Were they stocky or slender?

Do we know if HEF was stocky (like a hobbit or a modern human dwarf), or slender? I'm not sure how to visualize a 3-foot human. The Singing Badger 17:58, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wonder if we can have the artist's impression that's been splashed all over the newspapers on here as fair use. This would be helpful for people wanting to visualise our new friends. To answer your question they appear to be quite slender, hairier than us sapiens folk but walking fully upright and not like a chimpanzee, nor a pygmy, nor a dwarf human. — Trilobite (Talk) 22:09, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If the same artist's impression has appeared in numerous different newspapers, then I'd have thought we could claim fair use - MPF 11:56, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I of course have now put a version of the above in.--Pharos 07:07, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Natural Selection

BBC article stated that when large mammals that originated from a large contintent migrate, or become trapped on a smaller land mass, natural selection favours the small, and the mammals evolve into smaller versions of their ancestors. Should this be mentioned here? (explains small size of Homo floresiensis and the dwarf elephants. Astrotrain 18:51, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"The artist's impression"

Most so called artist's impressions of prehumans have black skin (I am white myself). How come? Isn't black skin developed from white (i e non-colored)?

Here's a link that could perhaps be interesting Becoming human, or perhaps better elsewhere. It contains a lot of info about human origin, with lots of artist's impressions too. Unfortunatly it doesn't yet have anything about our hobbit.

Some people believe that the white skin was developed from black skin. Black skin is the natural skin colour that appears on humans in Africa, the mother continent of all humans. Npc 12:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The reason I asked was that I was light blond when I was a child, and now I have reddish dark brown hair. Therefore I think the natural development is from non-pigmentation to full. At least from an individual point of view. But still, the proof for evolution, isn't it that embryoes of mammals looks like one another, and that we from there develop in different directions? What says that my european ancestors were black when they left Africa? What if everyone where white, and that the ones who remained adapted to protect the skin from the sun, and became black after that? After all, it is just pigment... There should be more or better prooves for depicing the prehumans as black, aren't there? And hairy? Embryoes and fetuses aren't hairy, and their development are the proof for evolution..?

Dude, read the article on skin colour, especially the paragraphs at the bottom. Human skin is distinguished by its potential to evolve darker or lighter depending on the climate of the area in which a community lives. Even if our earliest, hair-covered ancestors in Africa had pale skin, they would have evolved darker skin once they began to lose their body hair, long before they left Africa. The Singing Badger 18:23, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, it was very interesting, but I still doesn't think it makes sense. What says that they were hairy? Aren't worms less developed than scaly snakes or hairy mammals? The way i see it - probobly wrong? - fur has to be developed from naked skin. We aren't developed from monkeys, but instead our ancestors are more closely related than we are to non-mammals - right?

Fur developed from naked skin, but that was millions of years ago. Then humans evolved and the fur lost its evolutionary edge, so now we have less hair. Humans developed from furry mammals, there is little/no controversy about that. — David Remahl 10:59, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"I was light blond when I was a child, and now I have reddish dark brown hair. Therefore I think the natural development is from non-pigmentation to full." ← this is an example of the theory that Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, i.e. that the development of an organism exactly mirrors the evolutionary development of the species. This theory is wrong. All humans have dark skinned (human) ancestors. If you divide humans into a dozen or so racial groups, using DNA testing to measure relateness (not looks alone), you will find every "race" will have some or all members with dark skin. White skin is the exception, not the rule. Similiarly lactose intolerance is also the normal condition for humans. --Pengo 06:29, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, now I can go on with my studying. (But I never thought that we are decendants from reptiles - I thought our ancestors were more childish but that's another and long story).

Not a dwarf but a microcephalic H.sapiens

I have published the following in "Sunday Mail" (Adelaide, Australia) on 31 October 2004, p 91 and I stand by it. The "other 5-7 individuals" talked about are just small fragments of bone and some teeth that do not allow firm conclusions about their brain size or exact stature, beyond saying that bodies were rather small which is fairly normal for many tropical zone people like pygmies. Andamanese etc.

WHY THE ‘HOBBITT’ MAY NOT BE A NEW SPECIES OF HUMANS

Three days ago the world was stunned by the announcement of a discovery of a new species of humans who survived until, perhaps, historical times. A skeleton of diminutive person was unearthed in Liang Bua limestone cave on the Indonesian island Flores by an Indonesian-Australian team of scientists. In the same cave were found small fragments of skeletons of a few other humans, sophisticated stone tools and bones of animals that were apparently hunted and eaten by inhabitants of the cave. Occupation of the cave extended from over 38 thousand years (ka) ago to 13 ka. During that time surrounding islands and Australia were already settled by people looking like modern humans. The discovery has been made by researchers of excellent professional reputation and published in the leading scientific journal “Nature”. The skeleton belonged to an adult of short stature, around 105 cm, that is equal to that of shortest women among modern pygmies. The most astounding feature, however, is the size of its braincase- mere 380 mililitres (= a stubby bottle of beer’s volume), less than half of the size of the smallest brains of intellectually normal modern people, and clearly below the minimum for even the oldest humans who lived 1-2 million years ago. The face attached to this tiny braincase, however, fits comfortably within normal human size range. This discovery shatters many long-cherished theories: brain size can no longer be seen as indicative of the level of intelligence, vastly different human species co-existed until very recent times, fairy tales of hobbits, elfs, gnomes and the like become true. It is so amazing that many scholars from around the globe are uncomfortably grappling with its consequences, while others wholeheartedly embrace it. It is not the first time that a breaktrough in our understanding of human evolution was caused by a single discovery. When the first Neandertal was unearthed in mid-19th century, leading scientists became deeply divided: some accepted the discovery while others tried to dismiss it as a modern skeleton that was severely altered by diseases. Today we know that it was a genuine early human skeleton. On the other hand, a discovery of the Piltdown man in the early 20th century turned out to be a fraud inadvertently accepted as genuine by many reputable scholars. Hence the discovery in Flores needs to be carefully examined. Last Thursday, when I read reports in “Nature” I started going through all I learned from studying human evolution for 32 years and from describing and measuring thousands of skeletons excavated by archaeologists in Europe, America, Africa and Australia. The Liang Bua skeleton did not fit comfortably into my experience: small, but still not really dwarfed, stature, normal face and abnormally small brain – a strange combination at any stage of human evolution. I obtained from the “Nature” website measurements of the Liang Bua skeleton meticulously published there by discoverers. Dimensions of the face, nose and jaws were not significantly different from those of modern humans, but the measurements of the braincase fell a long way below the normal range. The bell rang in my head. I remembered reading a report of a 4 ka old (Minoan period) skull from Crete. This skull has been identified as that of an individual with a growth anomaly called microcephaly (=small brain). This well known condition has multiple causes and affects individuals to a varying degree. Its most severe congenital form (primordial microcephalic dwarfism – PMD) leads to death in childhood. Milder forms of microcephaly allow its sufferers to survive to adulthood though they cause some level of mental retardation. My statistical comparison of 15 head and face dimensions of the Liang Bua specimen with those of the Minoan microcephalic shows that there is not a single significant difference between the two skulls though one is reputedly that of the “new species of humans”, the other a member of sophisticated culture that preceded classical Greek civilisation. Deeper down in the Liang Bua cave a forearm bone, radius, was discovered. Its reported length 210 mm corresponds to stature of 151-162 cm depending on method of reconstruction. This is a stature of many modern women, and some modern men, by no means of a “dwarf”. Thus, until more skeletons of the purported “new species” are discovered, I will maintain that a well known pathological condition was responsible for the peculiar appearance of the skeleton so aptly described in “Nature” and that we are still a single rational species.

(Prof) Maciej Henneberg Head, Department of Anatomical Sciences, Medical School, University of Adelaide

Including "others tried to dismiss [the Neanderthal] as a modern skeleton that was severely altered by diseases" in your article may be an unfortunate decision. Is that not your claim about the H. floresiensis skeleton? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 14:31, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"While there are stone tools dated as far back as 840,000 years ago, no fossils of large-bodied ancestors have ever been found" on Flores, Brown said. "There is some possibility [Homo floresiensis] arrived on the island small-bodied." [6]

-- Peter Brown

Modern phrenology

I see phrenology is alive and well in paleoanthropology, judging by the incredulity expressed about the possibility of H. floresiensis having intelligence. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 11:13, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Is the correlation of brain size across species with intelligence phrenology? For the record, the Nature article gives the EQ of H. floresiensis type specimen as 2.5-4.6 (probably on the higher side if one assumes lean body mass), H. sapiens as 5.8-8.1, H. erectus/ergaster as 3.3-4.4, H. Habilis 3.6-4.3. So, there is certainly no higher EQ among this group than erectus. But perhaps it would be better to say they are comparable, especially if we assume lean bodies (b/c of tropical environment). Also note the EQ is way below modern humans, whose technology they are supposed to be using. While relative brain size is quite significant, I think most would agree that absolute brain size is also of some importance. Although the importance of absolute versus relative brain size can sometimes be exxagerated, I think it would be a gross exxageration to call this "phrenology".--Pharos 12:40, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh, real values! Very interesting. However, the EQ of the type specimen can be calculated exactly; it is 1.23 times larger than the average EQ of H. erectus (brain has shrunk by 2.59 times, body has shrunk by 3.17). Note that this value corresponds to the top of the given range, which must represent all available samples, not just the type specimen. (How can a single sample have a range of EQ values?)

Since the average EQ of H. floresiensis (3.55) is comparable to that of H. erectus (3.85), there is no support for any idea that it might lack intelligence. Its tool use demonstrates it did not; the article should neither express surprise nor suggest that it had a level of intelligence different from H. erectus.

Especially, the article must not in any way make the suggestion that brain size alone determines intelligence. This is what my use of phrenology refers to. That is a bogus, misleading claim which persists in the public imagination despite better knowledge; the sooner it is eradicated, the better.

By the way, it's rude to make a blanket revert without attempting to incorporate new information, and it's confusing why you would do so despite your admission that the EQs of H. floresiensis and H. erectus are comparable. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 14:04, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)