quote: "It raises the whole issue of what it is to be human, or a member of the genus Homo," adds Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum in London, UK. "And shows how little we really know about human evolution."
I have never figured out why it takes so frikkin' long for New Scientist to load in my browser -- no other web site has that problem. But I could go take a coffee break in the time it takes that page to load..
posted
They must have been adventurous, built boats, and spread their seed. Adventurous hobbitses!
How does this extinct group compare with known pygmies of our day? I know that in the Philippine islands before several waves of new inhabitants came from various countries, there was a small race of humans living in the mountains there. Maybe relatives?
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It kind of throws a bit of a monkey wrench into our thinking of evolution for humans, but wow, this is just so cool.
I love that they lived on an island with Komodo dragons and pygmy elephants. Almost too fantastical to believe.
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quote: It kind of throws a bit of a monkey wrench into our thinking of evolution for humans
quote: It is possible that they were out-competed for food and other resources by H. sapiens or that they were wiped out by a volcanic eruption about 12,000 years ago.
How is extinction from being out competed or destroyed by a volcano any different than what we already think?
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posted
Because up until this, we had pretty much decided that 10 times as far back in our history that Homo Sapiens Sapiens had pushed out the other branches of evolutionary cousins, such as Neandertal man.
This might prove that there were other viable groups much later in the timeline than we had suspected.
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posted
Yeah, it loads really slowly for me to Farmgirl. Frustrating, but one of those rare sites where the quality of the content outweighs my irritation with how long it takes to get to it. The main NewScientist page comes right up, but none of the articles do. I just click on interesting looking articles and then go and do something else. When I get back around to it, the article has loaded.
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posted
(edit: in response to Kaioshin) It depends on if you think neandrethals have been incoporated into homo sapiens or were extincted. When "eve" was discovered in the early 90's the "lockstep" evolution theory was developed to counter it. (My mom got her degree in Anthropology when I was in high school about the same time as the mitochondrial DNA studies projected the existence of a single female ancestor for all humans)
Lockstep is the idea that essentially isolated proto-human populations developed into humans with minimal interbreeding. I know the way I describe it, it sounds downright improbable, so I don't know if I understand it correctly. But instead of a family tree, lockstep has more of a family corral fan arising from proto humans with brances that come apart and then back together.
The idea that this species, whose existence is being extrapolated from one skull, could use fire to cook and have a variety of tools, is among the things that will be difficult for anthropologists to explain. Of course, the individual might be a fluke mutation.
On the slow loading, do you get the subscription popup? It shows on mine and I wonder if that might be slow if your browser is closing it.
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No, I get the popup. I agree that it would be nice if they had more evidence of this species than the remains of a single individual.
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Another recent genetic study of lice showed that h. sapiens and other extinct hominids interacted (fought? mated? lived in the same communities? ) as recently as 25,000 years ago. Of lice and menPosts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote: The other individuals all show similar characteristics, and over a time range that now extends from as long ago as 95,000 years to as recently as 13,000 years ago -- a population of 'hobbits' that seemed to disappear at about the same time as the pygmy elephants that they hunted, both apparently falling foul of a volcanic eruption about 12,000 years ago.
Hmm. It seems that Frodo must have failed after all.
(HA!! That was funny!!) Posts: 51 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Ok, maybe he didn't fail, but it seems that the rest of the hobbits were killed off in the process. (By the way, Abrynne wanted to let you know that the above post is me masquerading as herself. )
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) as recently as 25,000 years ago. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
)![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
