The Mystery of the Human Hobbit
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The Mystery of the Human Hobbit

2009, Science  -    -  Playlist 19 Comments
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Ratings: 6.00/10 from 12 users.

Is the hobbit a new human species or nothing more than a modern human with a crippling deformity? On the far-flung island of Flores, in the Indonesian archipelago, a team of archaeologists happened upon a tiny 18,000-year old skeleton. It was no more than a metre tall. They assumed they have found the remains of a young girl. But other signs suggested she was in fact much older. They had discovered one of the smallest human adults ever found.

As the dig continued, the evidence unearthed got stranger. The diggers found elephants the size of cows, rats the size of dogs, lizards the size of crocodiles. It was like stepping with Alice into Wonderland. It was not just the humans that were peculiarly sized, everything large had shrunk and everything small had grown. Further digging uncovered spear points scattered among the bones of the pygmy elephants that appear to have been roasted on fires. It seemed that their tiny human must have been a skilled and intelligent hunter. Yet when they looked more closely at her skeleton, they discovered her brain was smaller than any other known human and no bigger than a chimpanzee's.

The team began to realize they had discovered a new species of human being. They called her the Hobbit. She was the smallest known species in modern human history. She lived at a time during which we previously thought we were the only species of human left on the planet. She seemed intelligent even with an animal-sized brain. She was someone worlds apart from everything understood about our ancestry, who challenged what it means to be human. The Hobbit was hailed as the scientific sensation of the century.

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buttons1994
buttons1994
12 years ago

How about you guys at Top Documentary remove all the videos that have been removed, so we unsuspecting people on the other end don't keep opening something to watch, just to find its been removed. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do it does it.

Abdul TheBarber
Abdul TheBarber
12 years ago

if the found more then 1 skeleton then its a different species if not then its a mutant

Denise Debra Ann Machan
Denise Debra Ann Machan
12 years ago

That was almost as exciting as Jurassic Park!! Too bad there are so many "maybes" though. Guess those guys should check out the Guiness Book of World Records.....

juanita8156
juanita8156
13 years ago

What makes you so sure that it's not someone with dwarfism

toddy
toddy
13 years ago

concerning the pygmy's versions of animals that were talked about. In connecticut off the coast in milford there is an island that has pygmy deer. They are no taller than shoulder high on a 5' 8" person. I've seen them one time during low tide i hiked there, and a few years after it i read in the newspaper an article about them.

robj2c
robj2c
13 years ago

This is prof of what? Only that our work is not done you can't find the answer until you have found all the questions to ask frist. I think we need to hold on what is really found yet/?

Carl Hendershot
Carl Hendershot
13 years ago

Skunk Man/Woman?

hotice
hotice
13 years ago

Skye-hook you clearly didnt even watch the program if thats your conclusion, it is not modern human that got tiny in few hundred years its a new species

Milton Babb
Milton Babb
13 years ago

@JS Monotheism occurred because the king found it to trying to maintain the lies of many Gods. The Hobbits could have evolved in three or four generations. In south America the natives from the lower elevations have a diffcult time when they move to the 14 K foot level but by the third Generation they are fully adapted to the pressure altitude.Your "Junk Genes" enable you to adapt to most any environment on earth in a few generations. Modern scientist are much too "all or nothing" to be really good at anthropology.
Too competitive.

John Seals
John Seals
13 years ago

@ Will

What is more cuddly than a Hobbit? I think that tops the cuddle scale, well exept for puff-a-lump. I'm not sure exactly what a puff-a-lump is- but it sounds damn cuddly. I think it comes from the latin- puffus-lumpus. Maybe a missing link between pillows and small furry animals. I have two, of course thier for my niece when she comes and stays the night. I would never cuddle with them desperately while sobbing into my pillow- That would be unmannly. (try and get that picture out of your head)

Will
Will
13 years ago

*waits patiently for the religious zealots to claim it's a fraud because the world is only 4,000 years old*

:-D

*continues waiting for bleeding-heart liberals to insist that "hobbit" is offensive and should be changed to something more cuddly*

John Seals
John Seals
13 years ago

@ Cliff

you are right. We are supposed to be commenting on the documentaries in these forums. I have a degree in theology, so when someone throws religion in the mix- that's where I go. Then it takes the whole thread over eventually. I'm sure the moderators here are getting tired of it so, I'll chill.
About the documentary, I love it. I mean think about those little dudes running around after little elephants. I wonder if they ever saw a human that was the average hieght and all. If so it must have been weird to them. I wonder what religiouse beliefs these hobbit people practiced. Chances are very likely it was a polytheistic religion as all recorded prehistoric tribal civilizations practiced polytheistic religions. We don't see monotheism until about four thousand years ago. I bet they had a priest or spiritual advisor of some type, to keep the gods close. The polytheistic religion seemed to always keep the dieties close and allow the worshippers direct access to the gods. Bargains could be reached for thier favor, they could directly intervene in your family or love life, it was like they where gods but also subject to mans whim. This is pure speculation of course I have no idea what thier exact system of religion was, wonder where i could find out. I mean these guys where really different. Maybe the same paradigms and archeatypes didn't resonate with them, it would be interesting to know.

Cliff
Cliff
13 years ago

I'm sorry but Allan, take a step back and look what you've typed. Comments like that is why people laugh at creationists. Please. Let's not change the topic of the documentary.

bo
bo
13 years ago

@allan youve read one book and we have read many. Keep re reading that one book. You do read it right? The answer is in there. The wrong answers.

Rabin Sapkota
Rabin Sapkota
13 years ago

We had a child story in Nepal when we never heard of Ailce in wonderland... of those types, when we were little and still in some society those types of stories remain, i belive may be there was some types of connection or relation ... which disappeared in due course of time.

Skye-hook
Skye-hook
13 years ago

Outstanding! The very idea that a modern-type human could possibly evolve into a much smaller human within a few hundred yrs is mind-blowing! Some of this is about humans evolving over a million yrs ago, but much of it is about tiny humans that seem to have evolved from normal sized humans on Palua. Lots of remains have been found, not just one or 2. I'd love so much to know more about what they've learned from it by now.
Thanks so much for putting it on here!

MD
MD
13 years ago

Very cool documentary. It's amazing to me that with all this evidence some theists still believe the earth is only 10,000 years old and there is no such thing as evolution...HERE'S YOUR PROOF!