The Palau 'Hobbits' - Proof of rapid human evolution?

Not quite sure where to post this, but here goes. Just been watching a documentary on this recent discovery of a large number of skeletons on a small Pacific island which appear very different from any other known humans, and which have been dated to between about 3,000 and 1,500 years old. The implication is that a group of modern humans landed on the island and then underwent rapid evolution in response to the restrictive circumstances in which they found themselves ending up not only smaller but with significantly different facial features.

news.bbc.co.uk...

www.nzherald.co.nz...

news.nationalgeographic.com...

sciencenow.sciencemag.org...

www.newscientist.com...

Is this the 'smoking gun' for evolution?

How would Creationists explain this enigma?

reply to post by Essan


It's not so much "evolution", as just not having enough nutrition to grow to one's maximum height.

reply to post by thought


And is that not evolution - physiological change in response to environmental change?

These were not just malnourished modern humans, their entire appearance and bones structure was different.

reply to post by Essan


Well...microevolution, yeah, macro, no. And, bear in mind even today we have pygmies and tribes of very tall people.

Yes, but anatomically they are still modern human. Their skeletons are the same - just larger or smaller. These 'people' on Palau had very different skeletons.

Aside from being tiny, the Palauan bones show that some of these people lacked chins and had deep jaws, large teeth, and small eye sockets, according to the paper.

Some of these features were considered important in originally distinguishing the hobbit as a unique—and archaic—species, Berger said.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

[edit on 31-3-2008 by Essan]

reply to post by Essan


Hm. I have no idea why that would happen. I'll have to chew on that one a bit.

Yes, I saw this Nova program regarding the "Hobbits" this week as well. Quite fascinating.

Just to clarify- Essan is correct. These skeletons are not simply small humans. They had some distinct characteristics that indicated something not altogether human.

Yes, this does have strong implications regarding evolution. However, more reseach needs to be done to definitively classify exactly what these things are.

Perhaps they can use the same new DNA testing that they have been doing recently on Neanderthals and will supposedly be doing soon on the "Starchild" skull?

reply to post by Essan


This is a good update to the Hobbits of Flores they have to be linked some where:

The find fuels new debate over the "Hobbit", a tiny human that lived on the island of Flores, 2,000km away. Some experts believe the Hobbit was a distinct species of human, Homo floresiensis, rather than Homo sapiens like us.

My notes:
"Homo floresiensis

The Fire using Hobbits of Kimberly regend ,maybe the oldest culture on earth,she rewrites the History of human kind,Nearly 1meter tall,every text book on earth maybe wrong,a New Human Species,
far north coast of Australia Kimberley region,Asian connection rock Art (Unknown),Prof Mike Morwood, in Flores amongst bones of miniature Elephants they found Stone tools 700,000 yrs old that lead to the discovery,chinless skull,strange teeth ,big footed Female,brain caverty was smaller than a baby's and a chimpanzee 400 cubic cm's,More accepting that it came from an alien space rather than Pre-modern man,come in the Thief Prof. Teuku Jacob stole the skeleton,now their in Indonesia the dig is suspended,so what is this a sick Pygmy or a Small grey?,Brain seem to be rewired ,LB1 brain has features that are unek an advanced 2 large convolutions its an important part of the brain for higher thought thinking or concentration ,"













Zelong.

As a student of Anthropology I see much in the morphology of the skulls that would appear to be almost exactly like modern Homo sapiens sapiens.

The absence of a supraorbital torus above the orbits, the high frontal bone, and the only indicator that they're not would be the absence of a chin (or Mentum).

I don't have a degree in Anthropology, so nothing I say can be taken as fact. I will state, for whatever it may be worth, that this is not an example of rapid evolution in the Darwinian sense. This is a simple case of natural selection... or adaptation to the environment.

reply to post by Essan


I'd explain it as horse #.

And I'm not a Creationist.

Filopinos should by this theory be significantly smaller in stature. And the Islands with isolated Negitos should look like these skeletons - but they don't.

[edit on 2009/8/9 by Aeons]

Well, we now know that neanderthal and cromagnon man were actually different species. I expect we will find the same here.

That being said, Punctuated Equilibrium is a very prominent theory, and this COULD eventually be the proof of it that researches have been looking for.