Friday, August 16, 2024

Where did the ‘hobbit’ humans come from? New fossils shed light



We have recent fossils and we know this creature is part of homo erectus.  Homo Floreiensis is clearly a small version of the global distribution of Homo Erectus.

I do suspect that this creature is extant globally and is the source of extensive folktales.  They live hard, but then do do the Sasquatch and ourselves as well before we got serious about tools.  We do have multiple reports on such hunting bands been seen, but hard evidence will be identified as anything else easily.

Recall we have 20,000 eye witness reports on Sasquatch.  Really cannot make a mistake.  Again they know us, even imitate us ,but also carefully avoid us.  They also likely have certain skills we have lost for concealment.



Where did the ‘hobbit’ humans come from? New fossils shed light



Published 11:00 AM EDT, Sat August 10, 2024


Researchers found fossils of the extinct species Homo floresiensis at the Mata Menge excavation site, seen circa 2014, on the Indonesian island of Flores. Gerrit van den Bergh


Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
CNN —

The human story became a bit more complicated about two decades ago.

In 2003, archaeologists excavating inside Liang Bua, a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, found a tiny humanlike skull. More bones followed, and at first, archaeologist Thomas Sutikna and his team thought they had uncovered the ancient fossils of a child.

But the molar teeth belonged to an adult. As the researchers cleaned the specimen, they realized they were looking at a newfound kind of human who lived 60,000 years ago: Homo floresiensis.



The fossils have perplexed scientists ever since. But a new revelation sheds more light on how the diminutive human — nicknamed hobbit after J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional characters — might have evolved.

We are family




A newly described distal humerus fragment from Homo floresiensis is shown. Researchers excavated the fossil in 2013 at the Mata Menge site. Yousuke Kaifu

A recent analysis of fossils belonging to Homo floresiensis found at the Mata Menge site on Flores supports the idea that the hobbits were a dwarfed version of the extinct species Homo erectus. And the newly studied fossils represent an earlier hobbit who was 2.4 inches (6.1 centimeters) shorter than the first specimen.

Homo erectus was the first ancient human to migrate out of Africa about 1.9 million years ago. Although Homo erectus had a gait and body size similar to modern humans, researchers think the species shrank in size over hundreds of thousands of years after becoming isolated on Flores.

An unearthed humerus bone is the smallest human limb bone ever found, and a digital analysis revealed it belonged to a roughly 3-foot-tall (nearly 100-centimeter tall) adult who likely lived 700,000 years ago.

Together, the Homo floresiensis fossils paint a portrait of a hardy species able to adapt and thrive despite the presence of hulking Komodo dragons.

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