Comments on: A new human species

By: Matt Brubeck

Matt Brubeck — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 04:35:41 +0000

“I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which allows them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow naturally leathery soles and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it). Now you know enough to go on with.” What are the chances that Flores Man encountered colonizing Homo sapiens and inspired some of the first “little people” stories and myths?

By: PHIL

PHIL — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 00:40:45 +0000

NEANDERTHALS HAD A LARGER BRAIN THAN MODERN DAY HOMO SAPIENS, BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN THEY WERE MORE INTELLEGENT THAN USE, AND IN FACT THEY WERE NOT.

By: PHIL

PHIL — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 00:40:06 +0000

NEANDERTHALS HAD A LARGER BRAIN THAN MODERN DAY HOMO SAPIENS, BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN THEY WERE MORE INTELLEGENT THAN USE, AND IN FACT THEY WERE NOT.

By: asg

asg — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 20:51:23 +0000

Because, naturally, a director’s job is to adhere to the source material as slavishly as possible.

By: Kevin Carson

Kevin Carson — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 19:35:43 +0000

barry freed, I’d skip ROTK. The Fellowship of the Ring adhered fairly closely to Tolkien, the main deviations being reasonable streamlining changes rather than gratuitous tampering with the plot. If you’ve seen Jackson’s second installment, though, you know how righteously he fucked it up. The third installment takes the vandalism up another order of magnitude.

By: Matt McGrattan

Matt McGrattan — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:18:41 +0000

The ‘big brain’ = intelligence thing has always been a bit shaky. There’s clearly a correlation, etc. but there are considerable variations in brain volume among modern humans, for example. There are some individuals with extremely low brain volume – Homo Erectus level brain volume! – that test normally on IQ tests and lead otherwise normal lives. If modern humans can lead typical modern human lives with a brain volume approximating that of a Homo Erectus there is no reason why archaic hominids with smaller than current average brain volumes could not also have exhibited similar levels of intelligence. That’s not, of course, to say that they actually did possess such intelligence levels.

By: chun the unavoidable

chun the unavoidable — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 15:22:30 +0000

Their tongues could not speak but only flatter.

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:53:45 +0000

Frodo lives! (Couldn’t resist.) Since there is some evidence that these “hobbits” had mastered some fairly complicated technology while having brains the size of chimpanzees’, this seems to me to decimate the whole “man is smart cuz he evolved a big brain” school of homind biology.

By: Jackmormon

Jackmormon — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 04:40:12 +0000

PZ, thanks for the link to Carl Zimmer’s site. He does a great job of summarizing the stakes of this discovery (and others, as I scroll down). Definitely one for the favorites list!

By: belle waring

belle waring — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 03:54:01 +0000

thanks pz, that’s a very interesting post. this is only the coolest thing EVAR! maybe I should go to Flores on my next vacation and start looking around for little dudes. and we’re going to get info about Titan in the next few days, hopefully! wooo hooo science!

By: PZ Myers

PZ Myers — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:34:06 +0000

Here are some other sources: Nature's special online section on Flores Man is free. Carl Zimmer has a summary of the significance of the discovery. I've got some of the figures online at Pharyngula.

By: HP

HP — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:06:25 +0000

Height alone does not differentiate species. The ratio of height to arm length and brain size, however, can. H. floresiensis has longer arms and a smaller brain relative to its height compared to humans. Also, just looking at the skull (NB: IANA physical anthropologist), the nose looks all wrong for humans. It’s practically flush with the face. (Granted, there’s lots of variety in nose height among humans, but even the flattest-nosed are nowhere near, say, a chimp or an orangutan.) In other news, there’s increasing evidence for the existence of the orang pendek, a bipedal ape reputed to live in Indonesia. Personally, I don’t know how you’d distinguish a bipedal ape from a hominid. Could the Orang Pendek and Homo floresiensis be related?

By: Njorl

Njorl — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 21:33:14 +0000

12,000 years old? Is there a reason to assume it is a different species? Their relationship in height to pygmies is aboput that of pygmies to west-Europeans. Height alone does not differentiate species.

By: Giles

Giles — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 20:13:22 +0000

They then moved on to New Zealand where they can be observed to this day.

By: Barry Freed

Barry Freed — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 20:04:10 +0000

homo periannath, perhaps? And I wonder if those dwarf elephants aren’t some distant cousin to the Mûmakil? Yes, I was a LOTR geek for a long time. And I’ve yet to see Jackson’s ROTK. But I will geekishly admit to having joined the Mythopoeic Society when I was twelve.