24 Feb

Hobbits Were Very Intelligent

In my previous post I talked about a new species of three-foot tall humans discovered in a cave on Flores Island in Indonesia. Scientific tests conducted on several skeletons ruled out that these individuals were children, pygmies, dwarfs or were suffering from microcephaly.

Indeed, scientists have found them to be a unique species related to Homo Erectus, hominids who lived 2 million years ago and died out some 25,000 years ago. One of the most fascinating discoveries about this new species named Homo Floresiensis and nicknamed ‘Hobbits’, involved conclusions derived from CAT scans of the inside of their skulls.

Homo Floresiensis Brain

Photo Source: Daily Times

Hobbit brains were unlike those of Homo Erectus or even modern humans. Their brains had ‘fat’ temporal lobes, even proportionally larger than those of humans. Temporal lobes are where vision, speech, perceptual organization, emotional processing and memory functions take place.

These tiny people were undoubtedly very intelligent, not unlike the Menehune in Secret of the Crystal Skulls.

Stories and legends of little people can be found in many countries around the world. The Menehune are the Hawaiian version, which many people in the islands claim exist even in our present day. A new scientific discovery by archaeologists, proves that at the very least, little people existed up to 13,000 years ago.

The 1m-Tall ‘Hobbit’ That Rewrites the

History of Mankind

12:00AM Thursday October 28, 2004
By Steve Connor

A model of the ‘hobbit’ skull is held by an employee at the Science Museum in London. Picture / Reuters

11.45am – By STEVE CONNOR and DAVID KEYS

Scientists are celebrating the most important breakthrough in anthropology for a century: the discovery of a new species of apeman. Described as human “hobbits”, the apemen grew no taller than about 1m and had brains the size of grapefruits.They lived alongside prehistoric man for thousands of years before they finally died out in the dense jungles of Indonesia, in a lost world inhabited by dwarf elephants and giant rats.

Archaeologists excavated the skeletal remains of the little humans from a cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, which has a rich history of exotic animals such as giant lizards and miniature beasts. Four dating techniques proved the species of “little people” was still living in the region as recently as 13,000 years ago.

They may even have survived into more modern times – when they could have been the inspiration for local folktales of shy pygmy apemen who lived in the forest. Specialists said the new species, officially named Homo floresiensis or Flores Man, calls into question the very nature of what it means to be human, because of its extraordinary dwarfed features and tiny brain.

A partial skeleton of a female, nicknamed “Hobbit” by the research team, has left the specialists in no doubt that Flores Woman represents a new and most unusual member of the human family.The skeleton is 18,000 years old and, although small, is perfectly proportioned.

At first, researchers thought she was a child but closed skull sutures and wear on the teeth suggest that she was about 30 when she died. Further remains of up to seven individuals, some dating to only 13,000 years ago, suggest that there was once a thriving population on the volcanic island of Flores.

It is unequivocal evidence that another species of human was living at the same time as our recent ancestors.

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The 1m-Tall ‘Hobbit’ That Rewrites the

History of Mankind