‘Hobbit’ hominins scavenged meat left over by Komodo dragons

 

Image courtesy of Lionel Bret/Eurelios/Science Photo Library

Joel Kontinen

Did hobbits or Homo floresiensis  eat animal bones left by Komodo dragons, according to devolution, the science says it is so.

The diminutive ancient humans nicknamed hobbits that lived on the Indonesian island of Flores until around 50,000 years ago had limited hunting skills, according to a study of animal bones found in their caves. Instead, researchers think they scavenged meat that was left behind by Komodo dragons.

Fossils of Homo floresiensis were first announced to the world in 2004. These humans stood just over a metre tall and their remains have been dated to between 90,000 and 50,000 years old.

Source:

 James Woodford 2026 ‘Hobbit’ hominins scavenged meat left over by Komodo dragons | New Scientist 3 July

New research: Hobbit was a modern human suffering from iodine deficiency

Did Frodo and Sam suffer from iodine deficiency?



Joel Kontinen


The debate on the status of the Hobbits or Flores Men has been quite lively in the past few years. (You can read more here, here and here.) According to fresh research, the Hobbit was not a distinct human species but a true H. sapiens suffering from iodine deficiency.

Found on the Indonesian island of Flores, the diminutive Hobbits were named after the heroes of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth story.

Recently, Charles Oxnard, an emeritus professor at the University of Western Australia, and colleagues published a paper in PloS ONE, comparing the bones of humans suffering from cretinism, chimpanzees and healthy humans to those of Hobbits or Homo floresiensis. The study suggests that Hobbits were H. sapiens whose small size probably resulted from cretinism caused by iodine deficiency.

In 2008 Professor Oxnard and colleagues examined the Hobbit skull. According to ScienceDaily they found out that it ”showed evidence of endemic dwarf cretinism resulting from congenital hypothyroidism and were [sic] not a new species of human.”

More recently, Oxnard and his colleagues tested their theory by examining the post-cranial skeleton of Hobbits. The study supported their view.

Earlier last month another research team also found evidence for the theory that Hobbits are fully human.

Robert Eckhardt, professor of developmental genetics and evolutionary morphology at Pennsylvania State University, and Maciej Henneberg, professor of anthropological and comparative anatomy at the University of Adelaide, examined the skull of the Hobbit known as LB1 that was found in the Liang Buan cave on Flores and published their findings in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Professor Eckhardt criticises the approach of some researchers who have classified the Hobbit as a distinct species on the basis of a single asymmetrical skull instead of seeing it as a deformed H. sapiens skull.

Eckhardt adds that although LB1’s braincase was badly asymmetric, this does not make Hobbit into a species distinct from H. sapiens.

According to professor Eckhardt, there still are people on the island of Flores who resemble Hobbits. The jaw and teeth of present-day Floresians hardly differ from those of Hobbits although they have a bigger and more symmetric skull.

Commenting on his research, professor Oxnard says: "Cretinism is caused by various environmental factors including iodine deficiency -- a deficiency which would have been present on Flores at the period to which the dwarfed Flores fossils are dated."

Professor Oxnard points out that cretinism is still quite common in Indonesia, including the island of Bali that is not far from Flores.

Seen from the creation perspective, the research results of these two Hobbit studies were expected. All people are the descendants of Adam. As the apostle Paul said, ”The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth … From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth.” (Acts 17:24, 26).

Sources:

Researchers offer alternate theory for found skull's asymmetry. PhysOrg.com .(6 September 2010).

'Hobbit' Was an Iodine-Deficient Human, Not Another Species, New Study Suggests. ScienceDaily. (28 September. 2010).

Were Hobbits Master Toolmakers?

Hobbits were obviously master toolmakers.



Joel Kontinen

In 2003 tiny human fossils were found on the Indonesian island of Flores. The 1-metre- tall Flores Man (Homo floresiensis) was soon dubbed Hobbit after Tolkien’s diminutive Middle Earth hero.

It now seems that these Hobbits have left us proof of their dexterity. They used sharp-edged stone tools.

Archaeologist Mark Moore of the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, and his colleagues examined over 11 000 stone tools found in the Liang Buan Cave on Flores island.

With a brain capacity of a third of H. sapiens, Hobbits were nevertheless able to craft so good stone tools that when people classified as H. sapiens later came to the island, they used the very same pattern in their tools. This became obvious when the archaeologists examined the layers in the cave. H. sapiens obviously used the same cave after the Hobbits.

Moore even suggests that H. floresiensis and H. sapiens might have interacted.

Although Hobbits were small, we have no reason to think that they were not fully human. They were obviously no more primitive than individuals classified as Homo sapiens. Like us, they were the descendants of a real man called Adam.



Source:

Culotta, Elizabeth. 2009. Did Humans Learn From Hobbits? ScienceNOW Daily News. (17 April) http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/417/3