Any new information about the "Hobbit" skeletons found in indonesia?

Question

I saw a TV show on Discovery channel last night and I was wondering if the issue was decided either way? The one side was saying it was a deformed Homo Sapien. The other side was saying they had found more than one skeleton. I have a hard time believing a species with a brain that relatively small could make the sophisticated stone tools found at the site, but I also have trouble believing a whole group of deformed, Beverly retarded cavemen would have survived to adulthood.

Answer 1

It will always remain a topic for debate, since there is no conclusive video-footage, or time machine travel available, to prove it one way or the other, beyond reasonable doubt...

People thrive on debates, such as whether or not Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon interbred...Life vs Choice...Democrat vs Republican, etc....

You get the idea, right?

Answer 2

Or was Cro-magnon an Ape or a Human.

Answer 3

Right now there's to much controversy for and, against these "Hobbits" in the first place, these skeletons date to a time when the Island were connected, there was no need to "swim" as one thought. And, we now know the ancients had and, could use boats, as far back as fifteen to ? thousands of years ago.

       Secondly, the tools didn't necessarily belong to these Hobbits and, another issue is the size of the people that now live in the area. Some are only four feet tall and, small.

        Third: these could have been people ostracized not unlike the lepers.

        We could go on and on. We'll just have to wait and see. As to whether the scientists are being reliably honest, they have to submit their findings in order to get them printed or, they fall into limbo and, never heard from again.

        I'd rather doubt these people would test the intelligence of the scientific community and take a chance at being ostracized like these possible Hobbits.

        Lets "wait and see" rather then start tossing stones.

Answer 4

There was some interesting findings on the wrist that pointed strongly to a "primitive".  Not to be outdone, the believes of them being humans, cite a recent discovery of a new gene that causes microencephalie and also affects the bones.  It will be a while before this one gets settled.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jh...

I have to agree with your assessment of the likelihood of them having tools as sophisticated as spears.  First there were modern humans on the island or certainly in the region for 10's of thousands of years so they could have easily left the tools.  I also don't like the island hypothesis because it is not that long of a swim and they could easily have swum from other islands.

Jacob, who said they were modern humans was trying to say all the fossils in Indonesia were modern human ancestors or the multiregional hypothesis to increase their value.  He likely intensionally damaged them while casting them to reduce a critical diagnostic region but I can't recall what exactly he damaged.  He also said that because there were four foot tall individuals on the island now, that the fossils are obviously microcephalic pygmies of modern humans.  That is one of the stupidest things ever said by a paleontologist so he has little credibility with me.   The other argument against is almost as lame that states something to the effect that you cannot have an animal evolving a smaller brain.

It is just natural to expect radiation when a species reaches a new environment.  Perhaps they were a small adapted version of Homo georicus and some of the Java fossils are large versions with several other species of what have been called "erectus".  

It makes much more sense that it is a hominid that evolved from a lineage distant from modern humans.  Besides the questionable tools, the small brain should point to something that diverged very early in the Homo lineage but there aren't enough fossils to know for sure.

“For many of us in the field, we have taken those studies, especially the one [on the wrist bone] as really being the death blow to the idea that we’re dealing with a modern human,” Potts said."

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/heal...

Answer 5

I pretty much agree with Bravozulu.  I read the book by MIke Moorehead  about the hobbit which he found.  I very much like Moorehead and he is a very sensible and practical scientist.  I think that the Hobbit was going to put a big damper in the nearly defunct theory of multi-regionalism which Jacob loudly supported.  Jacob botched his counter theory in my opinion and an amateur could have made a better case.  He stole the bones for a while in my opinion to attempt to take the credit for them.  He has a history of hording away his finds for years and not allowing others to view them.  In my view, the hobbit is almost certainly a separate species.  Whether it made those tools associated with it, I am still doubtful.  Moorehead knows that the tools were the thing that would get him in trouble but he presented the data as he saw it.  The tools as well as the hobbit itself present a challenge to the orthodoxy of Out of Africa and this was going to be a major hurdle in getting the fossil recognized.  It is lucky she is so well preserved.   I personally have been interested in the Orang Pendak and other modern sightings.  For me the hobbit was some confirmation of those creatures.  I hope that didn't throw my credibility out the window, but the evidence for them existing to modern times is very compelling yet not well known.