Hobbits EXISTED!!!

Check this out! Not only did they exist, but they lived among (Komodo) dragons and giant rats!
https://news.griffith.edu.au/2024/08/07/smallest-arm-bone-in-human-fossil-record-sheds-light-on-the-dawn-of-homo-floresiensis/

Carla Burke wrote:Check this out! Not only did they exist, but they lived among (Komodo) dragons and giant rats!
https://news.griffith.edu.au/2024/08/07/smallest-arm-bone-in-human-fossil-record-sheds-light-on-the-dawn-of-homo-floresiensis/

I'm not 100% sure but I think some paleoanthropologists found remains of a very small homo species and nicknamed them "hobbits" (because, well, scientists are often nerds). It doesn't mean J.R. Tolkien was prescient or basing his ideas on the fossil record. There have been discoveries of other extinct short homo species that didn't get this nickname, e.g., the Denisovans, or Java Man.

I didn't realize I had implied any of that... This forum is called "Meaningless Drivel" for a reason. It is a catch-all for silliness, socializing, and things that are mostly irrelevant to much of anything, as well as off-the-wall permie stuff that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else.

Personally,  I think the big take-away here, is how quickly it was possible to either "evolve" or "devolve" if a landscape changes rapidly and cuts a species  off from the larger population. Shrinking size was insufficient to guarantee long term survival.

Modern humans should take note...

However, I will also comment that it frequently both amazes and befuddles me that archaeologists can make such incredible decisions about what things looked like, based on incredibly small bits of bone etc. I have no doubt that dinosaurs existed, but using them as an example, it took a lot of work to go from "cold blooded" to "hmmm... it appears some of them may have been warm blooded" to "hmmm... some of them were the extreme forefathers of chickens".  A single discovery of more bones from an area or a time period, can alter current beliefs.

Carla Burke wrote:I didn't realize I had implied any of that... This forum is called "Meaningless Drivel" for a reason. It is a catch-all for silliness, socializing, and things that are mostly irrelevant to much of anything, as well as off-the-wall permie stuff that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else.

Sorry. Sometimes in a purely text medium like this I can't tell when someone is joking, or to what extent.

Ned Harr wrote:Sorry. Sometimes in a purely text medium like this I can't tell when someone is joking, or to what extent.

No worries, Ned. "Flat text" does indeed cause issues at times, for most of us.