Tuesday, March 11, 2008





Tiny Palau skeletons suggest "hobbits" were dwarfs

Tiny skeletons found in the caves of the Pacific islands of Palau undercut the theory that similar remains found in Indonesia might be a unique new species of humans, researchers reported on Monday.

The Palau skeletons, which date to between 900 and 2,800 years ago, appear to have belonged to so-called insular dwarfs -- humans who grew smaller as a result of living on an island, the researchers said.


Marginally related (albeit lame):

'Creepy Gnome' terrorises town

A town in South America is living in fear after several sightings of a 'creepy gnome' that locals claim stalks the streets at night.

The midget - which wears a pointy hat and has a distinctive sideways walk - was caught on video last week by a terrified group of youngsters.

(Via The Anomalist.)

8 comments:

mister ecks said...

I dunno, that gnome video creeped the hell out of me, even though it's probably just a drunken Little Person dancing the typewriter...

mister ecks said...

That guy's scream is classic.

Anonymous said...

Oddly mac you were the first person I thought of when I saw the Palau news, after reading the interview in Alien Worlds.

Insular dwarfism crops up in the palaeontological record pretty much everywhere - you can see it in the records of a lot of Mediterranean Islands and most famously the Worrel Island mammoths. It doesn't seem to show in humans that much (because culture allows for enough gene flow) but the potential is there (pygmies show this, as do quite a lot of the rainforest dwellings tribes of the world - it is just a different type of selection pressure).

I have wondered about the mechanism for the creation of the cryptoterrestrial and this would seem to be ideal - they could have branched off sometime round the end of the Ice Age c. 10,000 years ago and only been forced out of hiding due to the growth of world population numbers and the spread of explorers. Transforming from one type of hidden existence to a more technologically assisted one. If they could have got their hands on technology/civilisation at some point perhaps their isolation would have kept them out of the boom and bust cycles most civilisations took allowing them to get that one (or two) crucial steps ahead of us.

Anyway intriguing stuff - it all seems to be slotting into place for you ;)

Anonymous said...

That was the funniest thing I've seen all week!

-Ken Y.

Anonymous said...

Oh, please. The "creepy gnome" looks unbelievably fake. The Blare Witch Project meets Bigfoot (or, in this case, Littlefoot). I wish I knew enough Spanish to make a sarcastic comment in that language.

Re putative "Hobbits," so-called "insular dwarfism," sounds good to me. (On the other hand, they could just be the result of SFX....)

Mac said...

Emperor--

Hey, great thought! And thanks for passing it along. It certainly "feels" right ...

Mac said...

Oh, please. The "creepy gnome" looks unbelievably fake.

I think so too, but it depends on your criteria. After all, the claim is that we're looking at a "creepy gnome." Well, it's creepy. And there could very well be a midget beneath that hood ...

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