Tiny chinless wonders threaten anthropology rift

[Bonobo]

I posted this in the GD as well but want to submit here too.
This is just amazing, amazing news.

We appear to have shared the Earth, up until a few hundreds years ago, with a pygmy species of Homo Erectus that was thought to have been extinct millions of years ago.

_______
"A tiny hominid whose discovery in a cave on an Indonesian island unleashed one of the fiercest debates in anthropology has suddenly been joined by several other sets of dwarf-sized beings.

At least nine other wee individuals lived in the cave, where thousands of years ago they skilfully butchered meat and handled fire, according to new findings.

The initial find at Liang Bua cave, reported almost exactly a year ago, became known as the Hobbit Hominid, after the pint-sized characters of J.R.R. Tolkien's stories.

Measuring just a metre or so (3.25 feet) high -- thus as tall as a chimpanzee -- and with a skull the size of a grapefruit, the strange creature lived around 18,000 years ago on the remote island of Flores."


http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051011/sc_afp/sciencepalaeontology_051011160606

[MiniMandaRuth]

1. If they were Hobbit Hominids,

did they have little fuzzy feet and massive appetites for food?

And, did the cave have a perfectly round door with a large brass nob in the middle?

:shrug:

[Bonobo]

2. This is the Science forum. Were you looking for the Lounge perhaps?

[MiniMandaRuth]

4. Eh. It's sciencey-biolgy type stuff.

[newscott]

3. There would also be evidence of lots of burnt tobacco about.

[frogmarch]

5. Maybe we will

never know who/what they were if Indonesia doesn't let researchers investigate further.

[Sequoia]

6. Legends of little people are found in numerous folklores

around the world—leprechauns, brownies, gnomes, and dwarves. American Native tribes also had stories of little people.

Among the Choctaw these beings were called Kowi Anukasha or Forest Dwellers who gave chosen members training in herbal lore (The Little People, Choctaw Legend, Zica'hot'a). The Maliseet called them, Geow-lud-mo-sis-eg, and depending upon one's attitude, the encounter with
alittle person could be beneficial or negative (Little People, Pat Paul). The Cherokee believed in three races: Stone People who could be malicious, Laurel People who were pranksters, and Dogwood People who were kind and helpful (Little People of the Cherokee, no author listed).

In Seminole lore, little people appear to those who were ill. The little people are believed to inhabit witches' brooms found on slash pines (Pinus elliottii Engelmann). Alice Micco Snow writes of the treatment to drive the little people away.

<snip>
http://www.killerplants.com/herbal-folklore/20021028.asp

AND

<snip>

It is said there was a legend by the Shoshone Nation of Wyoming that there once existed a race of tiny people known as the Nimerigar.
The Shoshone said these little people would attack them with tiny bows and poisoned arrows. They said the Nimerigar killed their own kind with a blow to the head when they became too old or too ill to remain a useful part of their society.

It was a story reminiscent of the native legends of "little people" told all over the world. Other names for this tribe of people included geow-lud-mo-sis-eg, nunnehi, yunwi and tsunsdi. The discovery of the tiny mummy in the rock addadds some credence to the legend.

http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/id854.html

[Orsino]

7. "Few hundred years ago"?

"....bits and pieces from at least nine individuals have been found, and dating of the remains suggest some were alive as recently as 12,000 years ago...."

I haven't heard of any evidence of their having survived into historical times.

H. erectus, by the way, went extinct less than half a million years ago.

[Bonobo]

8. There is no direct evidence yet, but the indigenous people there have

memory in their oral tradition of a strange "folk" that lived there. If I recall correctly, their local name for the creature was translated as "old grandmother who eats everything" and they said that they used to eat the offerings brought to them by the indigenous tribes, plate and all (apparently they used plates made from organic substances-plants or bark or whatever).