Dwarfs Gone Wild: Can’t See The Forest For The Hobbits

Anthropologists are busy arguing over whether or not the recently discovered and named Homo floresiensis is actually a new species or not. The latest tests seem to say they are a new species.

They’ve also nicknamed them Hobbits.

On the one hand, you have those arguing it was merely a Homo sapien with microcephalia. On the other, those who say its an entirely new species. Personally, I’m leaning towards and hoping for the new species site to come out on top.

New evidence is lending more credibility to the claims that it is indeed a new species. Also, the Indonesian government recently gave persmission for excavations to resume in the cave where the Hobbit was found.

A new technique was used to help determine whether the Hobbit was human or not. Who cares? That’s not what I found fascinating. Here’s an excerpt from the article by author Ker Than.

While the new technique suggests LB1 was not a microcephalic, it does not rule out that it was not a Homo sapiens. As evidence of that, Falk points to what she says are several advanced features of LB1’s brain that are unlike those of modern humans or any other known hominid species.

“What we have is a little tiny brain that has four features that you can see with your eyes that are advanced and distributed from front to middle to back,” Falk said. “In other words, this thing appears to be globally rewired. Those are really advanced features. They’re not like humans, they’re not like anything.”

(Source: Livescience.com via Yahoo! News)

Is anyone else besides me more interested in the brain being wired differently and having “advanced features” that aren’t like anything Human?

I could not care less if it was a dwarf gone wild or a new species.