A New Study on Homo floresiensis

Nature News mentions a new study on Homo floresiensis that concludes that the fossil is that of a microcephalic modern human. The study is actually published in PNAS (and if someone could send me a copy I would appreciate it – my email is in the about tab).

Ancient DNA From Homo floresiensis: Redux

Extracting DNA from Homo floresiensis has been tried in the past with no luck. Nature News reports on a new attempt to obtain DNA from a Homo floresiensis molar. What struck me is interesting from the story is this bit:

Ling Bua? I Thought it was Taung.

I think the title of my post says it all

Two Million Year Old Artifacts on Sulawesi: The Return of Hominid Catastrophism

That is what this article in the Guardian claims!

Primate Brain Evolution And The Hobbit

BMC Biology has a 64 page paper on brain evolution in primates. The paper focuses on Homo floresiensis and concludes that (from the abstract): Our results confirm that brain expansion began early in primate evolution and show that increases occurred in all major clades. Only in terms of an increase in absolute mass does the [...]

Anthropology in the News

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a nice article on the use of CT scanning in paleoanthropology:

Like Sands Through the Hourglass, These Are the Taxonomic Assessments of the Hobbit

The Journal of Human Evolution is going to have a special issue devoted to Homo floresiensis and word is leaking out on one of the articles in it. The Australian has the best article so far. I say that because it inspired a Homer Simpson like D’OH moment on my part. Here is why:

Did Homo sapiens Copy Tool Making Techniques From H. floresiensis? Do Bonobos Rate Food?

Science is reporting on interesting research on the Ling Bua stone tools:

New Homo floresiensis Studies

Since 2004 the taxonomic status of Homo floresiensis has been one of the more hotly contested issues in paleoanthropology. I have 34 articles on the subject and there are some that I haven’t acquired yet. The Journal of Human Evolution has four more papers on Homo floresiensis. One discusses the Liang Bua faunal sequence, a [...]

New Study on Homo floresiensis

PhysOrg.com mentions that there is a new study out on Homo floresiensis. The new study takes an interesting approach: Using 3D modeling methods, McNulty and his fellow researchers compared the cranial features of this real-life “hobbit” to those of a simulated fossil human (of similar stature) to determine whether or not such a species was [...]

Creationism and Homo floresiensis

I’m sure everybody watched the Alien From Earth if not follow the link. Especially because I am about to lay some serious stupid on you. I was randomly surfing the web and stumbled across two articles on Homo floresiensis both of which were written by creationists.

The Hobbit Enigma: Semi-Liveblogging the Documentary

John Scanlon brought an interesting documentary to my attention. The documentary is about Homo floresiensis and can be found here.

Homo floresiensis: How Did This Dreck Get Published?

One of my readers (thanks Sabine) tracked the article down, so I have had a chance to read it. All I can say is “Wow!” There is certainly a lot of questionable material in it, to the point that I have to wonder how the paper made it through peer-review. Think I’m exaggerating? Here is [...]

Homo floresiensis: The Argument Continues

According to Yahoo News a new paper is being published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B that will argue that Homo floresiensis was a member of Homo sapiens that suffered from severe iodine deficiency. According to Yahoo News the paper is authored by Charles Oxnard and Peter Obdendorf. I haven’t been able to find [...]

Homo floresiensis on the National Geographic Channel

Tomorrow at 7:00 the National Geographic channel is airing a program on Homo floresiensis. Looks like it is going to be interesting.