From myself:
Hmm … but maybe the point is. that the cultural level of those people was not at all as low as everyone thinks? Imagine what will be left of us say after a nuclear war? In a thousand years, and maybe even earlier, all cities and other things that have been made by man will be completely erased from the face of the planet. Millions of years will pass and another civilization will appear, which will someday find the jaw of a modern man and will be surprised at his golden crowns, because according to their "data" people in such "ancient times" only learned how to make fire.
Scientists have discerned a sealed canal in the tooth of the "hobbit" that lived on the Indonesian island of Flores about 12 thousand years ago. It is not clear who installed a very high-quality seal, even by modern standards
Some anthropologists believe that the seal indicates that all these remains belong to modern people, while others do not believe in its existence at all. They are not yet given access to the jaw.
At the weekend of the annual conference of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, one of the most hotly debated topics was again the Floresian man, Homo floresiensis, often referred to as nothing more than a hobbit. The remains of these miniature people, ranked as a previously unknown species of prehistoric hominids, cause more and more controversy among scientists, some of whom classify them as a new species of people, while others see underdeveloped Homo Sapiens.
As the conference participants write in their blogs, one of the ardent opponents of the idea of a new species of Homo, Matvey Henneberg, found a new justification for his point of view, which became one of the most popular topics for discussion on the sidelines of the conference.
Looking at photographs of the LB1 hobbit's skull - the best-preserved bones of H. floresiensis from Liang Bua Cave - he found a sealed root canal of the pulp of the first lower molar of a hominid.
This circumstance may mean that scientists are not dealing with ancient hominids, but with the remains of modern people, moreover, who died very recently. Unless, of course, we assume that the prehistoric hobbits were familiar with modern dentistry.
The serious anthropologist Henneberg, of course, had no intention of creating an anti-scientific sensation. His statement is intended only to add fuel to the enmity of two groups of anthropologists, looking at the hobbits from different positions.
The whole reasoning comes down to a series of photographs of the jaw of an ancient man. Henneberg made his observations back in 2005, when he discovered an unusual formation in the jaw of a hominid, but since then has not published his theory, as he was waiting for permission to work directly with the remains. However, he still has not received permission and he himself doubts that he will ever get it. Desperate, Henneberg decided to publish his speculative theory in its current form.
Of course, opponents of the theory that H. floresiensis belongs to the subspecies H. sapiens lashed out at Henneberg with fierce criticism. They also cite computed tomograms and various photographs as arguments against the validity of his assumption.
Below is a photograph of the LB1 mandible taken by Peter Brown of the US University of New England who led the initial investigation of the remains found at Liang Bua.
The lower jaw of the "hobbit" bearing a "filled" molar tooth. // P. Brown
According to Brown himself, he does not see any traces of the presence of a canal in this tooth, and if it were, it would be impossible to disguise it. The fact is that until recently there was no other way to fill cavities in teeth, except for the use of amalgam, and this dental material began to be widely used only in the 19th century. The hobbit's jaws are apparently about 12 thousand years old.
If you attach a CT scan of the hominid jaw to this image, then Henneberg's theory may seem completely groundless. No anomalies in the structure of the tooth, indicative of damage to the canal, are not visible in the three-dimensional image.
Promotional video:
Computed tomography of the "hobbit" jaw. // P. Brown
Scientists from the University of Washington, who have their own tomograms of LB1 fragments, did not agree with Henneberg's position. According to them, a tooth defect is not at all like a filled canal made by a dentist, as it is shallow, untreated and does not expand along the direction towards the tooth surface. In addition, a canal filled with silver amalgam would additionally show its contents during scanning.
In contrast, the defect pointed out by Henneberg is similar to many defects on other LB1 teeth, where severely worn tooth enamel has exposed dentin.
At the same time, Henneberg's position was unexpectedly supported by renowned anthropologist John Hawkes. In his personal blog, which is often called "the best anthropological blog of the network," the scientist spoke out rather sharply against Henneberg's opponents, and at the same time criticized the situation, whether deliberately or by accident, around the remains of a Floresian man.
According to him, the problem is not worth a damn. To resolve the dispute, in which some authoritative anthropologists claim that the canal shows traces of drilling, and other no less authoritative persons talk about the sample, nothing more than a damaged tooth, it is enough just to dig into the remains with a scalpel or make a good lateral radiogram of the jaw.
Examining and waving hands around existing controversial photographs will not work and can hardly be considered a scientific approach.
Unfortunately, neither one nor the other was done. And the ban on working with the remains of H. floresiensis, imposed recently by the Indonesian museum where they are kept, implies that this will not be done in the near future.
In this case, there are a number of good reasons to believe Henneberg's theory to be true:
1. The tooth enamel on the cheek side in a strange way abruptly breaks off and protrudes 1.5–2 mm above the tooth surface. The medial enamel is completely destroyed, and a whitish, flat, dotted surface forms most of the bite area of the tooth. This is not consistent with the deterioration of the antimer of this tooth - the right lower first molar, in which dentin is clearly visible in the region of the tubercles.
2. The lower molars, in general, are worn out asymmetrically - the lower right teeth are worn out much more strongly. This is consistent with the assumption that the owner of the jaw, for some reason, had to chew mainly on the right side during his life.
3. The dental cells of most molars are severely changed, and, apparently, the left upper molar of the hobbit was prone to caries. These facts are in accordance with the hypothesis of the spread of periodontal disease in the oral cavity of a hominid, which began with a large focus of caries in the lower left molar M1.
Henneberg believes that the filling of this tooth could have been made from dental cement and not from silver amalgam. Historical documents speak about the wide practice of using a certain composition of dental fillings on the Flores Islands.
It is for this reason that Hawks believes that despite the extraordinary nature of Henneberg's suggestion, a tooth that has already been carefully examined and preserved needs to be re-analyzed. To do this, it will be enough to make a radiogram at the desired angle or carefully examine the object with the naked eye.