Fossils Of Hobbits Found

“Fossils of tiny human dug up in Indonesia
Bones: A hobbit-like cousin of modern man lived on an island maybe as recently as 13,000 years ago.

By Dennis O'Brien
Sun Staff
Originally published October 28, 2004
Researchers probing a cool cave on a tropical Indonesian island have found a bizarre branch of our family tree - an extinct hobbit-size species of human that experts are calling one of the most important discoveries in 50 years.

The people on the island of Flores were a little over 3 feet tall, weighed about 55 pounds and had brains a third the size of ours - smaller than the brains of chimpanzees. But they used fire and stone tools and hunted collectively as recently as 13,000 years ago - a period when humans elsewhere were beginning to farm.

Researchers from the Indonesian Research Centre for Archaeology and a group of Australian universities discovered Homo floresiensis while looking for clues about how ancient humans first reached Australia. Instead they found evidence of the smallest people ever known.

"We came to refer to them as the hobbits because keep in mind they're only half as big as us," said Richard "Bert" Roberts, co-author of one of two reports describing the discovery in today's issue of Nature.

Hobbits are the mythical, furry, 3-foot-tall people who inhabit J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.”

“Treebait posted the first thread on this and me the second.
MarkO is the third! ;-)

http://www.thebackpacker.com/trailtalk/thread/15601,3.php
http://www.thebackpacker.com/trailtalk/thread/34329,3.php
last edited: 10/28/04 1:08:56 PM”

“Laugh my ass off ! !”

“You liberals are always a day late! ;-)”

“Yeah, but mine's FUEGO, ya butthead!!!”

“LOL”