Hobbits Bones Found in Indonesia
 

Link to the Story

This is so cool. Going to Indonesia at the end of November and I'm definately going to try to find out more. :D

That's kind of cool.

Wild story. It just shows how much we don't know.

hmmm.....those bones could be anthing from a midget to a little kid.

...or an early ancestor of my mother in law :D

I saw an article on somewhere about this, and at first I was thinking it might be midgets too. However, they're saying the skull and brain cavity are only a quarter of the size of humans. I know that midgets have slightly smaller heads than regular-sized people, but I don't think it's that much smaller. As for whether it might be a child, I don't know how the scientists determined that it is not.

I imagine there would be growth plates in a child's bones, whereas there would be none in an adult. Interesting find!

Dee

Thats one of the things. There different biological cues in children vs. adults. The linear idea of evolution was thrown out years ago. I would like to know about other instances of this species found, because the first thing that came to my mind was how a scientist fabricated a small skull and tools and "discovered" them in England in the late 1800's/early 1900's, so that the British could claim human life orginated in England.

I'm off to look for the scientific paper...hopefully I'll find more info.

I believe you're thinking of Piltdown Man, and it wasn't so much to prove human life originated in England, but that there was a "missing link". It was a human skull with an orangutan jaw. Piltdown I fragments were first discovered in 1912, and Piltdown II in 1915 by Charles Dawson.