Hobbit Skeleton "New Species of Human"

I was reading on one of my favorite sites, rense.com and came across this store, the one of the hobbit skeleton found in indonesia thats estimated to be 18,000 years old.
here is the story, i find it pretty interesting to say the least

I have not read to much about this, i just came across it reading articles from rense.com website. It claims that the Hobbit skeleton that was found in Indonesia is a separate and new human species that lives some 18,000 years ago.
here is the link to the source page of the article

Hobbit Skeleton

I dont know if i did the "external quoting" utility correctly or not.. sorry if it isnt right.

Scientific evidence supports the theory that a 18,000-year old "Hobbit" skeleton unearthed in Indonesia was a new species closely related to Homo sapiens.

Some scientists had theorized that the skeletal remains found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 belonged to a pygmy or a microcephalic -- a human with an abormally small skull.

But researchers from Florida State University who examined a three-dimensional computer reconstruction of the small but well-formed brain of the hominid, "classified it with normal humans."

"We have answered the people who contend that the Hobbit is a microcephalic," said world-renowned paleoneurologist Dean Falk, who is also chairwoman of Florida State University's anthropology department, which conducted the research with Indonesia's Center for Archaeology along with other international partners.

Her team's study of both normal and microcephalic human brains is published in Monday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The computer model reproduced the surface of the brain, including its shape, grooves and vessels, revealing what Falk described as a "highly evolved brain."

The skeleton came to be known as "the Hobbit" after the diminuitive characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's classic "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

The brain of the Hobbit -- more accurately identified as "Homo Floresiensis" -- was compared to those of 10 normal humans and nine people suffering microcephaly, a virus which stunts the development of the brain.

The complete skeleton and skull unearthed in a cave on Flores measures 1.06 meters (3.6 feet), igniting a raging controversy among anthropologists, who until then had believed the extinction of the Neanderthal 30,000 years ago left Homo sapiens as the only surviving human species.

Archaeologists had found sophisticated tools and evidence of a fire near the remains of the three-foot-tall adult female with a brain roughly one-third the size of a contemporary human.

"People refused to believe that someone with that small a brain could make the tools. How could it be a sophisticated new species?" Falk said.

"It's the 64 thousand dollar question: Where did it come from?" she said. "Who did it descend from, who are its relatives, and what does it say about human evolution?" said Falk. "That's the real excitement about this discovery."



[edit on 29-1-2007 by Kr0n0s]

[edit on 29-1-2007 by Kr0n0s]

Well, I'll point out right now, Rense.com is not a site you should
source, as it's not a very refutable source.


However, this is one of times where this is a true story.

The 'Hobbit', while being recognized as a new species, is still very
controversial within the paleoanthropoligcal community, and really
does depend on who you ask.

Sometimes rense is good, sometimes it is very suspect. Kinda like Pravda, if you know what I mean.
I saw this story on drudge.

This really puts a new spin on the anthropologic data that we have now, doesn't it. It goes to show you that some stories are not only imaginative, but could and probably do have a basis in reality. I'm talking about the legends of the "little people" throughout the world. Leprechans, real, ? Who can know if they were a story that had a basis in fact.

Also , since it was a separate species, there had to have been more of these little hobbits. We are very lucky to have found the ones we did find. Who knows what civilizations there has been that we will never know about. They could have been quite advanced, we probably will never know what they knew.

I think it is a great gift and it is humbling to know that there were other species of human. That, in and of itself, is remarkable.

science.slashdot.org.../01/30/0337214&from=rss

Seems the other sites are picking it up as well. Last info updated was like 2 hours ago on one of the links posted by slashdot....

I actually like rense, the authenticity of their stories doesnt concern me because i dont look for truths in everything i read. I find stories, read them and if I find them interesting I pass them on to others. Believing in a story isnt a prerequisite for posting it on here, I simply post what I find and allow others to form their own opinions.
I dont post things on here, then try and prove its real or fake. If its one thing Ive learned over the years is this, the majority of the time if you do try and convince someone to come to "your way of thinking" it isnt going to work so i dont even try.
I have posted just one thing on here that i truly believe was real and that was the image of the UFO i had taken from my balcony over the bay.
Still though, no matter what you say to someone, if they believe its a bird etc.. then so be it, its useless to try to make them believe otherwise.
Because of certain things that have gone on in my life, starting many years ago, Ive always believed in the paranormal and the existence of UFO's.
I could tell people my "ghost" stories or my UFO experiences, that I know are true but somebody is going to want proof every time. well I cant prove it and they cant prove that it didnt happen.
This isnt directed at you iori or anyone else in particular, its a generalization meant to be directed at most of the skeptics out there, they know who they are.

The jury is still out on whether the 'hobbits' are a new species or just ordinary human beings suffering from some sort of shared congenital disease. The original discoverers of the remains thought they were a new species and even gave them a name: Homo floresiensis, after the island of Flores in Indonesia where they were found. But other paleoanthropologists, including the leading light of the profession in Indonesia, contest this.

The site where the remains were found on Flores has just been re-opened to scientists, so we'll be hearing more about this soon.

We no so much about so many things now than we did even 20 years ago and I give tons of credit for this to Cable T.V. and the internet.
Im 37 years old and didnt get cable in my home untill i was about 13 or so but up untill just a few years ago we only got stories like this from the tabloids because the mainstream press probably wouldnt have carried a story like this.
I dont know how significant this would be to the science community if it does indeed turn out to be a new species. I say this because even if a hand full of scientists do embrace it as fact there will always be detractors that will refuse to accept it for whatever reasons and this controversy will only hurt the chances of others believing this story and others like it.
Oh well, i dont know why i get on soap boxes like this all the time but at least im only disrupting my thread and nobody elses (most of the time) hehe

The National Geograpfic page says it is most likely a new species and was not a diseased human.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

That might help.

[edit on 30-1-2007 by StinkyDerSon]