Discovering The Hobbit

Imagine how many different fossils were discovered over the years of animals that were

alive so many years ago. One very important discovery was made in the Southeast Asian Island

of Flores, the discovery of miniature humans called "Hobbits." This discovery of fossils

shocked many people and scientists as well. Imagine if the hobbits were till alive today, we

would be walking around with regular sized people and also miniature people. Just the thought

of this is weird. Many scientists are arguing about this discovery and there is much controversy

surrounding this issue of where they originated, if they should be included in the family tree, and

what category they should be included in. In this essay, the facts about the “hobbit” fossils and

their origin will be discussed along with relating this topic to one in the textbook, and I will also

share my opinion about this controversy.

The discovery of a new species of miniature humans - the now world-famous real-life

“hobbits” - that lived on an Indonesian island until at least 13,000 years ago has driven home the

face that we have not had the planet to ourselves very long. During all the 7 million years of

hominin history a number of different species of humans and human ancestors have shared the

world, says Professor Bert Roberts, a member of the team that made the discovery. “We just

happen to be the ones that survived.” (Sydney Morning Herald)

Roberts and his colleagues have not ruled out the possibility the metre-high hobbits were

still running around Flores 500 years ago, or even more recently. In the wake of their surprising

find, scientists have even been discussing the possibility that we are not really alone - that some

undiscovered human species, or the hobbits themselves, have managed to survive undetected in

an impenetrable forest or some other remote spot. It is possible the far-flung Indonesian islands

have acted as a series of “independent Noah’s Arks, each with their own trademark endemic

dwarfs and giants,” says Roberts. The Australian team is expecting to find more strange human

species - extinct ones - when they begin digging on other Southeast Asian islands. (Herald)

This discovery of the Homo floresiensis was hailed as one of the most important

discoveries in human origins in a century and will inevitably provoke intense4 debate about

where the new species fits into the human family tree. It will also lead to soul-searching about

what it means to be human. These midgets with a brain smaller than that of a chimpanzee could

make sophisticated stone tools like our species, homo sapiens, as well as talk, use fire, fight off

huge lizards and other animals, then what really makes humans so special? (Herald)

The hobbits are thought to have evolved from taller archaic humans, Homo erectus,

morphing into dwarfs during hundreds of thousands of years of genetic isolation on the resource-

poor island, just like the elephants they shared it with. “It shows that humans are subject to the

same laws of nature as any other animals,” says Professor Colin Groves, of the Australian

National University. Our ancestors began climbing down from the trees 7 million years ago, and

it is more than a million years since homo erectus spread from Africa to Asia. The last thing the

Australian and Indonesian team expected to discover when they went digging in a Flores cave in

September of 2003 was a 30-year-old woman the size of a three-year-old who died 18,000 years

ago and appeared to be a direct descendent of homo erectus. (Herald)

In the year 2004, the team has found the remains of six more hobbits who lived in the

cave from about 95,000 and 13,000 years ago. Many scientists have found these discoveries

“remarkable,” “astonishing,” and “wonderful.” Professor Bernard Wood, of George Washington

University, is among those describing the discovery as the most significant in human evolution

in his professional lifetime. On the other hand, this is a controversial issue to many different

scientists. Professor Jeffery Schwartz, of the university of Pittsburgh has said that the hobbit

should not have been classified as human. Many others disagree. (Herald)

The hobbits have features that go back to 3 million-year-old African hominins, such as

Australopithecine. Groves believes that the sophisticated stone tools found in the cave were

probably made by homo sapiens, who lived alongside the hobbits