Beyond bones & stones
When the 3 and 1/2 foot Homo floresiensis was discovered and the age of the new species correlated with the the same time Neanderthals were dying in Europe and humans colonized Asia a lot of arms and voices were thrown in the air. People questioned the validity a new species, so different, so small... A... Continue Reading →
Discovered in 2003 in Liang Bua cave, Homo floresiensis stood about three and a half feet tall and weighed around 75 lbs. Because of their stature, they were nicknamed for the diminutive heroes in J.R.R. Tolkien's famous novels. The discovery team originally estimated that these 'halflings' lived as recently as 12,000 years ago, which would... Continue Reading →
There have been great debates about the lineage of Homo floresiensis. A new unpublished study in the Journal of Human Evolution used imaging to re-examine the layers of the Liang Bua 1 (nicknamed LB1) skull. lead author Antoine Balzeau, a scientist at France's Natural History Museum and Philippe Charlier, a physician and anthropologist at Paris-Descartes... Continue Reading →
A Homo floresiensis premolar will be drilled, and DNA extracted, according to a Nature News piece passed on by Razib, John Hawks, and Dienekes. This is not the first attempt at extracting hobbit DNA, the news article explains, "Five years ago, two teams, one from ACAD and one from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology... Continue Reading →
Speaking of the Johansons and fossils ... Earlier this year, I've blogged about the 2009 Human Evolution Leakey Symposium at Stony Brook that I went to. For more about that blog post, click here. The symposium, entitled "Hobbit in the Haystack: Homo floresiensis and Human Evolution" can now be streamed live through the Stony Brook... Continue Reading →
Skull of LB1 (Homo floresiensis, or the hobbit) Photo from Science Museum New analysis by a team led by Australian National University doctoral student Debbie Argue showed that Homo floresiensis, nicknamed hobbits, were early hominin and walked out of Africa to Flores. Their findings supports the argument that Homo floresiensis had a unique wrist anatomy... Continue Reading →
I watched that NOVA special on Homo floresiensis last night. It was extremely well done. The producers covered a lot of angles, interviewed many key players, presented the information in a clear manner and kept it entertaining. I wish more anthropology related documentaries would use this show as a template. In lieu of resonating more... Continue Reading →
You may have gotten a heads up from John Hawks that a new documentary on Homo floresiensis is around the bend. It is actually going to air tomorrow and you should catch it. It is titled "Alien From Earth," premiering tomorrow Tuesday, November 11 at 8pm. I'll definately be watching. You'll be seeing clips from... Continue Reading →
According to these press reports, Debbie Argue, of the Australian National University's School of Archaeology and Anthropology, has produced a new cladistic comparison of Homo floresiensis to many other H. erectus, H. ergaster, H. habilis specimens. I read the releases, and it seems like some gracile australopithecines were also in the comparison set... at least... Continue Reading →
More reports have been coming out of last week's meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and one that has caught my attention is a news article summarizing Bill Jungers' research on the Homo floresiensis foot morphology. Jungers recently published a research paper reanalyzing Orrorin bipedalism, along with his colleagues. For this presentation, Jungers... Continue Reading →
Anthropology.net 
You must be logged in to post a comment.