« Partial Abecedaries from Gezer
Main
Friday Pot Blogging »
August 25, 2006
The Final Word on the Hobbit?
Carl Feagans, at Hot Cup of Joe, has a very good summary of the current state of discussion on the remains found on Flores Island. You'll remember that the excavators thought they had discovered a new species, Homo floresiensis. Almost from the beginning that hypothesis came under attack with some anthropologists who thought the most complete of the skeletal remains showed evidence of it being a microcephalic member of our species. Carl tells of a new, free, paper titled "Pygmoid Australomelanesian Homo sapiens skeletal remains from Liang Bua, Flores: Population affinities and pathological abnormalities" that supports the microcephalic interpretation of the remains.
While there seems to be a growing consensus that LB1, the remains with a more or less complete skull, is an abnormal individual among a pygmy population, I think the discussion is far from over. Carl will bring you up to date with his many links and his summary of this recent paper by a team headed by Teuku Jacob.
While I saw Carl's discussion first, John Hawks' Weblog also has a very good discussion of this current paper as does afarensis.
Again all this is science at work the way it should work, evidence modifying theory rather than the other way around.
Posted by Duane Smith at August 25, 2006 9:27 AM | Read more on Paleoanthropology |
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telecomtally.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1835
Comments
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.
Send me an email if it is important.