The dwarfs that lived on the Indonesian island of Flores about 15 thousand years ago are not suitable for us - Homo sapiens - as relatives. A long history continues - almost a saga associated with a sensational discovery, which was made by paleontologists at the Australian University of New England.
In 2003, in the Liang Bua cave of the Indonesian island of Flores, near the famous resort of Bali, they found the remains of eight tiny humanoid creatures - adults and erectus, whose height did not exceed a meter, but all 25 kilograms.
Among the finds was a well-preserved female skull the size of a grapefruit, parts of skeletons. In scientific circles, the owner of the skull and her relatives, without hesitation, was dubbed the hobbits, by analogy with the characters of the famous fantasy trilogy "The Lord of the Rings". The official name of the species is Homo floresiensis.
Anthropologists argue: are the hobbits - these same Homo floresiensis - our ancestors? Or do they belong to a separate tiny species of people who once lived on our planet? Or are babies ordinary ancient people, but with pathology? That is, they were sick, and therefore did not grow up. For example, they suffered from microcephaly, a disease from which the brain remains small and underdeveloped.
Recently, Antoine Balzeau of France's Natural History Museum and his associate palaeopathologist Philippe Charlier (palaeopathologist at Paris-Descartes University) once again examined the hobbit's skull, examining bone tissue in ultra-high resolution. And we did not find any features that would combine Homo floresiensis with Homo sapiens. Scientists did not find any traces of any genetic diseases that led to a pathological decrease in growth.
That is, according to Balzo and Charlier, hobbits are not people, but they are not ugly either. And who then?
According to current researchers, the babies were descendants of Homo erectus, who, while living on the island, were extremely shredded. This sometimes happens to creatures in isolation. For example, with pygmy hippos, which were once large.
At one time, British colleagues of French paleontologists compared the brains of normal hippos and pygmy ones. It was determined that in the latter it decreased in approximately the same proportion as in the hobbits. In other words, the little heads of the crumbs could well have acquired as a result of natural evolution. True, British scientists predicted the hobbits to be the ancestors of Homo habilis.
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Balzo and Charlier do not exclude something else - that the hobbits are still some kind of still unknown species of humanoid creatures.
By the way, before the French, scientists from the University of Washington Medical School defended the hobbits from offensive accusations of ugliness. They made a 3D computer model of the head - the one with the grapefruit. And they determined the features of the brain from the preserved imprints on the cranium. In their opinion, he developed quite normally.
Anthropology professor Dean Falk of the University of Florida went on to compare the same skull with nine skulls of people suffering from microcephaly. No resemblance. From which the researcher concluded that the hobbit woman had by no means a defective brain and was not sick.
The hobbit woman showed her face
Until recently, babies from the island of Flores were depicted approximately, since there was no more or less accurate portrait. Now it is. Following the method of the Russian professor Gerasimov, the appearance of the female hobbit was recreated by Dr. Susan Hayes from the University of Woollongong, Australia. And presented this face at the Australian Archaeological Conference.
Miss Hayes admitted that the fair sex of the hobbits, whose age was determined at 30 years old, did not differ in beauty - in her modern sense. She had high cheekbones, large - extended up - ears. But she didn't look like a monkey either.
BTW: Not legs, but some kind of skis
Arguments in favor of the hobbits belonging to a separate species were provided at one time by paleoanthropologist William Jungers of Stony Brook University in New York. The scientist took a closer look at the feet of these creatures. And I realized that I had never seen anything like it before.
Homo floresiensis has incredibly large feet - larger than half of the tibia. About 25 centimeters. For a baby less than a meter tall, this is too much. Not skiing, of course, but just as impressive as Mr. Frodo from The Lord of the Rings and other movie hobbits, which the creators provided with disproportionately large and hairy feet.
Jungers believes: stepping over, the crumbs were forced to raise their legs high so as not to shuffle them on the ground. Or, on the contrary, they were just shuffling.
The creatures also had severe flat feet. And a short thumb. All this, according to scientists, did not allow running. The hobbits were slow-moving.
AT THIS TIME: Hobbits, and you are not small yeti for an hour?
Analysis of the remains found in the Flores cave showed that at least 12-18 thousand years ago, the hobbits who inhabited the island were still alive, owned stone tools and used fire. But at this time, ordinary people also lived here. So the two species existed in parallel?
Apparently so. And not without reason, probably, the aboriginal islanders have legends about some shaggy dwarfs who lived in caves. They are still called Ebu Gogo here. And they claim that the shaggy dwarfs have gone into the jungle. But they did not disappear. There are also documents from which it follows that Ebu Gogo was found by Dutch merchants who sailed to Flores in the 16th century.
“In 1959, the French biologist Evelmans published a book in which he spoke about a tribe of dwarfs living in remote areas of Indonesia,” says Andrei Perepelitsin, head of the Labyrinth research group. - They laughed at Euvelmans. And now there is indirect evidence that he was right after all.
Some cryptozoologists do not exclude that Ebo Gogo is a type of Yeti - dik, mohnat. But it is small, unlike the giants - "Bigfoot", Bigfoot and other sasquatch - relict hominids found on the continents.
Indeed, he could grind, - hunters for the "Bigfoot" believe, remembering the dwarf elephant - the stegodon, whose remains were found on the island of Flores. He was as tall as a well-fed bull.
Interestingly, after scientists noticed the huge legs of the "Hobbits" Flores, and recognized after cryptozoologists that Homo floresiensis could really grind, they also began to be called bigfoots. Similar to the name "Bigfoot" in the USA. For example, the scientific journal NewScientist did not hesitate to use this word Bigfoot in an article about hobbits.
