Have real life hobbits been found?
Well, no, but this find is way too amazing to be buried in another thread.
So I’m reposting some of the major links here:
The main story is from the National Geographic , which will run a special on it next year.
Nature is putting up free links.
Jojo
October 28, 2004, 12:19am
2
The truly weird thing is that they may still be around, deep in the forests of Indonesia. From this BBC article : Hobbit joins human family tree
The last evidence of this human at Liang Bua dates to just before 12,000 years ago, when a volcanic eruption snuffed out much of Flores’ unique wildlife.
Yet there are hints H. floresiensis could have lived on much later than this. The myths say Ebu Gogo were alive when Dutch explorers arrived a few hundred years ago and the very last legend featuring the mythical creatures dates to 100 years ago.
But Henry Gee, senior editor at Nature magazine, goes further. He speculates that species like H.floresiensis might still exist, somewhere in the unexplored tropical forest of Indonesia.
Yes, this is one of the most spectacular finds in recent history. Maybe even more exciting than “Lucy”. And, if the scientists can recover some DNA…!!!
Wow, there is now more scientific evidence to back up Lord of the Rings than there is to back up the Bible.
Maybe Tolkien was on to something.
Exapno .
While I sympathize with your intent, you’ll have to live with a marker in GQ, pointing the way. There just wasn’t a question.
Moved.
samclem GQ moderator.
Coooooooooooooooooooooool!
It’s pretty friggen obvious why nobody has ever seen one, isn’t it, My Precioussss?
I’ll apologize for getting carried away in a fit of enthusiasm.
But you just know that somebody else was going to ask the question soon: it was featured on Fark.
And GQ was the right spot for the discussion. Ain’t doing much over here.
Is is true that mods are meter-high fascists overly intimate with pygmy-sized elephants, if you know what I mean?
So, does this count as evidence of the paranormal? (Tongue in cheek.)
I heard this story on the radio today, and my first thought (after the slack-jawed astonishment) turned to the menehune , a trbe (breed?) of tiny humans in Polynesian mythology. Given that many cultures have legends of small-statured people (gnomes, leprechauns, and whatnot), I wondered whether these may have been based on actual Homo species that co-existed with Homo sapiens in early culture.
Well, I see from the BBC article that leprechauns got mentioned. We’ll see, I suppose.