Re: Scientists Find Prehistoric Dwarf Skeleton
From: deowll (deowll_at_bellsouth.net)
Date: 10/30/04
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Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:28:02 -0500
"Antti Jarvi" <no-forename.jarvi@icon.fi> wrote in message
news:clt62g$nk1$1@phys-news1.kolumbus.fi...
>
> "MrPepper11" <MrPepper11@go.com> kirjoitti viestissä
> news:57cfd534.0410281236.1d45d2d8@posting.google.com...
>> "Clayton <Insert Pop Culture Pun Here>" <cjfat@SPAMBLOCKphonyemail.com>
> wrote in message news:<4180a7b3$0$32599$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>...
>> > "MrPepper11" <MrPepper11@go.com> wrote in message
>> > news:57cfd534.0410270938.209bfc3e@posting.google.com...
>> > > October 27, 2004
>> > > Scientists Find Prehistoric Dwarf Skeleton
>> > > By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
>> >
>> > They just had a story about this on the Channel 10 news....with the
>> > reporter, not just once but several times claiming this find "shatters
> the
>> > theory of evolution!!!"
>>
>> It boggles the mind to see today's news headlines. The reporters
>> should have educated themselves with something like this interview
>> with Bernard Wood:
>>
>> ABC Online
>> Anthropologist says new skeleton discovery most significant in 100
>> years
>> Thursday, 28 October , 2004
>> Reporter: Alison Caldwell
>>
>> HAMISH ROBERTSON: One of the world's leading anthropologists has
>> described the find as the most significant discovery about human
>> evolution for the last hundred years.
>>
>> Bernard Wood is Professor of Human Origins and Human Evolution Anatomy
>> at George Washington University in the United States. He believes the
>> Flores Man is a distant ancestor of Homo Sapiens, and there could have
>> been many more similar hominids on other islands around the region.
>>
>> Bernard Wood has been speaking to Alison Caldwell.
>>
>> BERNARD WOOD: I just think it's the most amazing thing that I've seen
>> in my professional lifetime - it's just a dwarf version of what our
>> ancestors were like probably about one-and-a-half million years ago.
>>
>> ALISON CALDWELL: What does it mean for the evolutionary theory? What
>> we have to come to accept is that there's this line, there are apes at
>> one end and there are human beings at the other end. Where do these
>> little hominids sit?
>>
>> BERNARD WOOD: It doesn't change it at all. It doesn't change it at
>> all. I mean, these creatures are the descendants of our ancestors,
>> about somewhere between one and two million years ago.
>>
>> The fact that they have survived as an isolated community right up
>> until 18,000 years ago doesn't alter their biology. They are what they
>> are. They aren't miniature little modern humans, they are, if you look
>> at their skeletons, it has all the hallmarks of what our ancestors
>> would have looked like one-and-a-half million years ago.
>>
>> And all that's happened is that they have dwarfed and they have kept
>> themselves to themselves. It just means that the group that we
>> recognise from one-and-a-half million years, that we thought had
>> become extinct, managed to maintain a sort of tenuous existence on
>> this island.
>>
>> And for all I know there may be the equivalent on other islands, and
>> they became. or this individual died or was killed 18,000 years ago,
>> my guess is because modern humans happened then to reach Flores, and I
>> don't think these would have stood much of a chance if they had come
>> face to face with homo sapiens at 18,000 years.
>>
>> ALISON CALDWELL: Is it possible these little hominids could also be
>> elsewhere on other islands around the region?
>>
>> BERNARD WOOD: I think it's entirely possible. And what's interesting
>> is that our view of human evolution, which has been based on Africa,
>> where there is insularity, because zoologists will tell you that they
>> think one major lake basin may not. may have their own flora and
>> fauna, their own specific flora and fauna. it's the first time we've
>> seen what human evolution might be like in an environment where you
>> have the potential for groups of creatures to be on an island and then
>> to be essentially undisturbed for literally maybe a million years.
>>
>> ALISON CALDWELL: But what about the scientists who say that Flores Man
>> doesn't belong in the genus homo at all, even if it was a recent
>> contemporary?
>>
>> BERNARD WOOD: Well, I think that's like saying this sort of dwarf
>> elephant that they've found on the island doesn't belong to the genus
>> stegodon. It's just a dwarfed version.
>>
>> And Homo floresiensis is a dwarfed version of Homo Agasta (phonetic)
>> or early African Homo Erectus. Just because it has a small brain
>> doesn't mean it's an ape. I mean, that just shows a sort of lack of
>> imagination.
>>
>> HAMISH ROBERTSON: Bernard Wood, who is the Henry R Luce Professor of
>> Human Origins and Human Evolution Anatomy at George Washington
>> University. He was speaking to Alison Caldwell.
>
> Very good views above!
> As far as I remember Homo erectus remains have been found in different
> parts
> of Asia, These date all times during the whole preceeding million years.
> These Forens men skeletons look very similar to other erectus findings.
> They
> are smaller, but so aremany other sub species living isolated on islands.
> So
> I would like to see them called Homo erectus florensis. Their forefathers
> arrived on this island 100 000 years ago or earlier. So they had had
> enough
> time to get here accidentally in a flood situation on a floating tree or
> debris.
>
The oldest tools on the island are way older than that.
> The latest remains date 18 000 Bp, this is very close to the time when the
> first Homo sapiens sapiens reached Australia most likely via Flores island
>
The last remains are about 12 to 13 thousand.
> Antti Järvi
> antti.noforename@icon.fi
>
> 18.000 years Bp is very closely the tim
>
>
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