REAL HOBBITS
'Dwarf' skeleton could
rewrite human evolution

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

In an astonishing discovery that could rewrite the history of human evolution, scientists say they have found the skeleton of a new human species, a dwarf, marooned for eons in a tropical Lost World while modern man rapidly colonized the rest of the planet.

The finding on a remote Indonesian island has stunned anthropologists like no other in recent memory. It is a fundamentally new creature that bears more of a resemblance to fictional, barefooted hobbits than modern humans.

Yet biologically speaking, it may have been closely related to us and perhaps even shared its caves with our ancestors.

The 3-foot-tall adult female skeleton found in a cave is believed 18,000 years old. It smashes the long-cherished scientific belief that our species, Homo sapiens, systematically crowded out other upright-walking human cousins beginning 160,000 years ago and that we've had Earth to ourselves for tens of thousands of years.

Instead, it suggests recent evolution was more complex than previously thought.

Click here for the rest.

I don't really know that there are any political ramifications for this story, but I do think it's pretty cool. One wonders about the cultural significance of such a finding, though. It adds quite a wrinkle to understanding legends of wee folk, leprechauns, gnomes, and the like.

Little bastards are always after me Lucky Charms...

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