New species of hominin from Luzon
The online journal Sapiens invited me to write up my thoughts about the announcement of Homo luzonensis yesterday. I do have more to say about this cool disc...
All posts tagged with Flores
How capable were early hominins of crossing water?
Last summer I published a piece on Medium about the possible ancient existence of hominins on Luzon: “This is where scientists may find the next hobbits”.
A new perspective on Homo floresiensis from one of the discoverers
In the South China Morning Post, a great story featuring Indonesian archaeologist Emanuel “Wahyu” Saptomo: “Indonesian archaeologist recalls Flores ‘hobbit’ ...
Considering rodent eating by the Flores hominins
A nice article by Anna Goldfield in Sapiens today profiles the work of zooarchaeologist Grace Veach, who is examining the remains of rodents in Liang Bua Cav...
Link: Modern human teeth from Liang Bua, Flores
Ewen Callaway reports on a talk at the European Society for Human Evolution meeting, presenting new human teeth from the ongoing Liang Bua archaeological wor...
Hominin remains from Mata Menge, Flores
I was really excited yesterday to read about the work of Gerrit van den Bergh and colleagues at Mata Menge, where they have uncovered hominin fossil remains ...
What the revised Liang Bua chronology leaves unanswered
Thomas Sutikna and colleagues report a significant revision to the stratigraphy of Liang Bua cave, which changes the geological age estimates attributed to t...
Somebody was on Sulawesi before 118,000 years ago
Gerrit van den Bergh and colleagues reported in Nature this week that they have recovered artifacts from an early habitation of Sulawesi. Like Flores, Sulawe...
Across the waters
Japanese tsunami debris has been arriving on the northwest coast of the United States, carrying exotic Asian marine species along for the ride. Earth magazin...
Mailbag: Denisova and the hobbit
Re: Denisova at high coverage”
Storkicide
I have to point to Robert Krulwich’s blog post, “Killer Storks Eat Human Babies”, about the giant extinct Maribou stork relatives of Flores.
Hobbit DNA hunt
Every so often, a reader asks me if I know any new rumors about DNA sampling of “Homo floresiensis”. I’m not holding out much hope for success given the trop...
A foot short
A single foot bone from a cave isn’t ordinarily very remarkable. But when it’s a funny-looking foot bone from a 67,000-year-old site on an island, that gets ...
Sketchbook
Today’s sketchbook:
Earlier arrival of stone tools on Flores
A new paper is pushing back the time of initial occupation of Flores by hominins to at least 1.0 million years ago. Adam Brumm and colleagues (2010) are repo...
Stony Brook Flores symposium online
A reader writes to let me know that the talks from the Stony Brook symposium on the Flores hominids are now available for streaming. I haven’t had a chance t...
From Flores to Stony Brook
Elizabeth Culotta reports from the Stony Brook hobbitrama:
Flores para los muertos
A reader passes this along:
Well, I guess that answers who the "top minds" are…
I saw this press release from Stony Brook today:
The forelimb and hindlimb remains from Liang Bua cave
Jungers and colleagues (in press) provide a medium-length description of the lower limb remains from Liang Bua cave. In a second paper with much overlap of a...
The Hobbit Nova: "Alien from Earth"
I’m sitting down in front of the TV to live-blog the Nova episode on the Flores fossils, “Alien from Earth.” It has the typical Nova high production values. ...
Essay on the island rule
The web site for the Hobbit episode of Nova has opened. It let’s you e-mail questions for Mike Morwood, features some graphics with endocast scans and some v...
Hobbit Nova coming November 11
On November 11, NOVA will present a new hour-long documentary on the hobbits, briefly described at the PBS website:
Liang Bua cave
Another Flickr find, Liang Bua cave, by Rosino (Creative Commons Share-alike license)
Peter Brown refutes Flores filling claim
Homo floresiensis describer Peter Brown has kindly sent me a link to his own website, where he lays out evidence against the claims for recent dental work o...
Nail in the Coffin Watch: Hobbit feet
In a New Scientist story about the feet of H. floresiensis:
Was Homo floresiensis the tooth fairy?
It's enough to drive me crazy. The rumor is that LB 1, the near-complete skeleton that serves as the type specimen of Homo floresiensis, may have evidence o...
What about Palau?
Lee Berger, Steve Churchill, Bonita De Klerk, and Rhonda L. Quinn have written a paper in PLoS ONE describing the skeletal remains of small-bodied humans re...
Mechanisms of development and body size
I'm just doing some background reading about the body size of pygmies (for both obvious and not-so-obvious reasons) and I thought it worth making a note of ...
A hard bolide to swallow?
For those of you who may be wondering what is wrong with paleoanthropology that we can't just resolve the hobbit problem, I can only say one thing: We are n...
Hobbit cretin FAQ
It's all over the news this week: Australian researchers Peter Obendorf, Charles Oxnard, and Ben Kefford claim that the Homo floresiensis skeleton LB 1 belo...
New Year's predictions, 2008 edition
It's that time of year again -- the time when those boring ``Year in Review'' magazines are on newsstands, and when pundits make fools of themselves predict...
How fast to Australia?
Science's Michael Balter reviews the recent Cambridge conference on "Global Origins and Development of Seafaring". The article begins with a suggestion th...
Tools of the hobbits
Julien Riel-Salvatore figures the Liang Bua "hobbit" tools aren't so complicated after all:
Hands down, palms forward
I've seen the "palms facing forward" quote in a few news reports about last week's Dmanisi postcrania paper. It's pretty nonsensical when you see it devoid ...
The Liang Bua report
Elizabeth Culotta's article on the Liang Bua conference appears in this week's Science. It's a real treat: around 2500 words worth of description of the pro...
A hobbit Internationale
There was an international meeting in Indonesia about the Flores hominids last week, including scientific presentations and a visit to the cave. I have a re...
Another diagnosis for a hobbit
Israel Hershkovitz, Liora Kornreich, and Zvi Laron think they know the problem with Liang Bua 1. Almost 40 years ago, Laron began studying patients with a c...
Miocene hominids and a crisis of confidence
Out of this week's Science Times special on evolution, I clicked into John Noble Wilford's article first, titled "The Human Family Tree Has Become a Bush Wi...
Ancient DNA profile
An article by science writer Henry Nicholls in PLoS Biology covers a lot of ground. Most of the attention goes to Alan Cooper, with Svante Pääbo i...
Answers in the New York Times
So I was reading yesterday's total softball exhibition review in the New York Times, on the new Ken Ham-built Creation Museum:
Island hopping
This article from The Age lays out an ambitious excavation schedule for Mike Morwood and colleagues:
A guide to fantasy science
I'm about two-thirds of the way through Mike Morwood's new book, The Discovery of the Hobbit, and I'll be posting a review when I'm through. Generally, I ha...
Women in human evolution reviewed
James Adovasio, Olga Soffer and Jake Page have a new book entitled, The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory. The authors are wel...
The island rule
Mark Lomolino has been one of the central figures in recent work on body size, energetics, and evolution -- especially with respect to the evolution of body...
Floresiensis presentations
I'm at the AAPA meetings in Philadelphia this week, which were preceded yesterday and today by the meetings of the Paleoanthropology Society.
Hobbit Idol
I felt like Ryan Seacrest Thursday morning, introducing papers about LB 1. There's not really anything new to report, but there were a few dust-ups. The aud...
Size, shape, and microcephaly
I've been taking quite a lot of notes while studying last week's paper by Dean Falk and colleagues.
"I'd be very surprised if the hobbits didn't fall down there."
So says Mike Morwood about the discovery (reported in The Australian) of a newfound chamber behind and beneath Liang Bua cave:
Another brain scan hobbit paper coming
LiveScience writer Ker Than on the hobbits:
Resource-stressed orangutans have smaller brains
That's what Andrea Taylor and Carel van Schaik conclude in this paper:
New Year's predictions, 2007 edition
It's a hazardous business, making predictions -- all the moreso because New Year's predictions have a deadline. If they don't happen this year, well, that's...
Early Timor habitation at Jerimalai
Australia's The Age online has a story by Deborah Smith that gives a short report about excavations at Jerimalai rock shelter, East Timor:
But was it a tiny-brained dwarf buffalo?
It's a short piece by John Noble Wilford, and there may be little more to say:
Is this the end for Homo floresiensis?
The paper by Teuku Jacob and colleagues is being published in PNAS today. Today's papers haven't appeared yet, but the press release is available online at ...
Pygmoid, Australopithecus, Homo, yada yada…
I can't help noting the contrast between these two quotes. First, from Argue et al. (2006:18-19):
Narrowing down Flores microcephaly
Well, I'm still writing from Zagreb, so I don't have a lot of time for review. But I do want to point out the new paper by Gary Richards in Journal of Evolu...
Mata Menge stone tools
Adam Brumm and colleagues (2006) describe the stone artifacts from the Mata Menge archaeological site on Flores. This site is one of several described by Mo...
Cryptomundo hobbit article
Loren Coleman has an article on his Cryptozoo News with quotes from several of the major players, including Peter Brown.
Martin versus Falk on microcephaly
Science is carrying an exchange of technical comments about microcephaly and the endocast of LB1. Bob Martin and colleagues weigh in with an argument for why...
Hobbit news from Stony Brook
In another post I write about the Martin-Falk exchange on the microcephaly issue.
When Science comes a-linking
I was reviewing my log files, and discovered that a lot of new readers are coming from Science magazine, which very kindly put me in their NetWatch feature ...
On pathology and evolution, or, the Turkish tetrapods
No story yet, in the history of the weblog, has had so many people writing to ask me if I am alive. Even my parents are asking me if it's real.
Wong Flores update
Kate Wong has a post at the Scientific American blog about what's coming up with the Flores fossils.
"The Mystery of the Human Hobbit"
This show on the Discovery Channel (3/4/06) seems like it should have some promise -- at least compared to the National Geographic Explorer version from las...
Top archaeology stories of 2005
I mentioned last month that the January issue of Discover had a list of the top 100 science stories of 2005 along with a short writeup about each. Now the m...
Tilting at absent Asian australopithecines
In Nature a couple of weeks ago, Robin Dennell and Wil Roebroeks had a provocative paper exploring the possibility that early humans (i.e. Homo erectus) ori...
New Year's predictions, 2006 edition
The weblog didn't start from zero a year ago; the sections related to my courses and the Flores files long predate that. But it has been a year since I star...
Is that a Jethro Tull song?
January's Discover magazine came in the mail; it has a list of the top 100 science stories of 2005. There are several paleoanthropology-related stories that...
Give those hobbits a Vegemite sandwich
From The Australian:
Hawks in Slate on blogging and tenure
If you've found the weblog from this Slate article by Robert Boynton, welcome! Take a look around!
Paleoanthropology: the new cryptozoology?
I got about halfway through this Wired article by Mark Baard about the "resurgence" of cryptozoology, when I found this:
If it weren't for those meddling kids…
What accounts for the coincidence of Science publishing the LB1 microcephaly exchange in the same week that Nature published the new Liang Bua bones? I can ...
From one microcephalic to twenty
Falk et al. (2005a) compared the LB1 endocast to one microcephalic skull and concluded it didn't match. Now Jochim Weber and colleagues (2005) have compared...
News trickling about Liang Bua
I am seeing news reports this morning about this week's upcoming paper in Nature about the Homo floresiensis bones.
Flores update, October 2005
This week's Nature is carrying a paper by Morwood, Brown, and colleagues (2005) presenting additional skeletal material from Liang Bua as well as a commenta...
Hobbit backlash building
The BBC ran a show tonight (Thursday Sept. 22) on the Liang Bua discoveries from Flores; meanwhile BBC News is reporting a few more details about the pathol...
Flores interviews on NOVA scienceNOW
I hadn't run across it before, but PBS ran a segment on the Liang Bua fossils in April. There is a webpage where you can watch the TV segment. You can also ...
The World Summit on Evolution
On the Scientific American website, there is a long article by Michael Shermer (editor of Skeptic magazine), describing his trip to the World Summit of Evol...
A new Tangled Bank
If you haven't seen it before, the Tangled Bank is a science carnival -- a compilation of weblog posts on science and medicine from some of the best online ...
Stalking the wild ebu gogo
In the current issue of Anthropology Today, there is a great article by Greg Forth (University of Alberta), covering the ebu gogo legend, and the impact of ...
Questioning the Flores dwarf Stegodon remains
Nicolas Rolland and Susan Crockford have a short piece in the current (June 2005) Antiquity concerning the Stegodon remains from Liang Bua (link courtesy of...
Back to Rampasasa
Following up on an earlier post, Time Asia has a story on the Rampasasa "pygmies." After reading the article, my feeling is that paleoanthropology has, on b...
Welcome to "Higher Ground" listeners!
If you are coming by because you heard the address on WPR's "Higher Ground" with Jonathan Overby, let me wish you a warm welcome. Feel free to explore a bit...
Homo floresiensis on 60 minutes
This week's (May 1) 60 Minutes on CBS had a report on the hobbit. There is a story on the CBS News website that appears to be a rough transcript. Beware the...
Back to the drawing board?
I'm from Kansas, and proud of it. I am therefore one of the select few products of public education in Kansas who studies evolution, and in particular the e...
The Rampasasa Pygmy Somatology Expedition
The interest in the biology of human pygmies did not begin with the Liang Bua find; it's been going on for awhile. The symptoms include Cavalli-Sforza's edi...
Retractions dept.
...wherein I disavow any suggestion that LB1 or any of the Flores fossils are australopithecines.
AAPA Meetings 2005
Now back from the meetings, I wanted to give my sincere thanks to all those who introduced themselves and had kind words about the weblog. I'm really glad ...
A show of "no support"
In an article about the controversy over the Liang Bua fossils, Rex Dalton of Nature inserts this non sequitur:
Have the hobbits been protsched?
USA Today has a feature article about the damage to the Liang Bua fossils upon their return from Yogyakarta. The article is available online, but the pictu...
The Ultimate Survivor!
OK, I was drawn in by the first few minutes, so I'm liveblogging the National Geographic show, "The Ultimate Survivor."
Homo floresiensis on National Geographic Explorer
I watched the hobbit episode of Explorer last night. There wasn't that much that was new, but they did present a new John Gurche reconstruction of LB1. As u...
The brain of the hobbit
News story on MSNBC
You heard it here first :: hobbits are australopithecines!
This is Richard Roberts in an Australian radio interview (the interview is formatted in one-sentence paragraphs, this is a single contiguous excerpt):
Can somebody find these hobbits a mommy?
More on the evolving story of the hobbit remains in this story (smh.com.au). Like most custody battles, the fight over these little guys is burning a lot o...
The Liang Bua debate, continued
Note: I wrote this post in 2005. We have learned much since then about the context of the Liang Bua fossils and archaeological record. These have changed the...
The Flores find: more thoughts on Liang Bua
Note: I wrote this post in 2005. More recent posts have up to date information about Homo floresiensis and the Liang Bua stone artifacts.
Liang Bua: an australopithecine from Flores?
Note: I wrote this post the day that the papers describing Homo floresiensis and its context in Liang Bua cave came out in Nature in 2004. From the perspecti...