Re: Importance of Flores Overstated?

From: deowll (deowll_at_bellsouth.net)
Date: 11/07/04 

Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 18:58:52 -0600

"Daryl Habel" <Dar_83001@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:d24f0b9f.0411051123.1249ea2@posting.google.com...
> "firstjois" <firstjoisyike@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:<WY6dncXswoD1ThfcRVn-ow@comcast.com>...
>
>> Thanks, Dar, I think this is fascinating stuff but it's not going to
>> change
>> all the text books on evolution. Wonder if some old Dutch sailing logs
>> might have some info hidden away!
>>
>> Jois
>
> Well, it will, at the very least,in some small way, certainly change
> some text in paleoanthropology books. Evolutionary theory can
> accomodate LB1, so that's not going to be re-written. Do we just
> accept that LB1 is an insular dwarf erectine derived Homo? Even if
> LB1 is not a dwarfed H. erectus, it is something that has to be
> explained. Is the 380 cc brain pathological? Is it some kind of
> cryptozoic extant Asian ape, maybe now extinct?

They spent over a year studying the bones before they published and that
last idea didn't even start the race.

>Certainly there were
> normal-sized H. sapiens seafarers in the Flores vicinity by 18,000
> years ago, who could have been responsible for the sophisticated tools
> (and, possibly, the death of LB1).

The tools were to scale so you are suggesting a seafaring group of dwarf
Homo sap. in the region for a tens of millinum that co-existed with these
beings. Not likely.

> If the 380 cc brain is not
> pathological, and LB1 is some kind of Homo, it has by far the smallest
> cranial capacity known for our genus. Someone will have to rewrite the
> books on how LB1 came into existence. I'm not satified with the
> Myotragus brain-size reduction explanation, and I've seen Ralph
> Holloway's initial reaction on Anne G.'s Yahoo palanthsci group, so I
> know I'm not alone with this uneasy feeling.
>
> Is the importance of Flores overstated? I don't think we really can
> answer that yet. There's been an incredible amount of hype that has
> accompanied this find, but very little in the way of comparative
> anatomical analysis included in the few pages of the Nature (Brown et
> al. 2004) journal article. I view this all as preliminary, so far.
> Best,
> Dar

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Importance of Flores Overstated?
    ... >> all the text books on evolution. ... > some text in paleoanthropology books. ... > accept that LB1 is an insular dwarf erectine derived Homo? ... 5)I have no trouble at all in accepting 'island dwarfism' in humans ...
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  • Re: Importance of Flores Overstated?
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