Remember those funny little Flores Hobbits? Carl Zimmer has followed the story like a master tracker over the years. In any case, Wrist bones bolster hobbit status:
Painstaking study of Homo floresiensis wrist bones shows that their wrists were far more primitive than ours -- suggesting that they were evolutionarily distinct from modern humans. The hobbits' wrists are so primitive-looking, say the researchers, that tracing our shared heritage would involve going back millions of years, perhaps to very birth of the genus Homo in Africa.
I wonder if John Hawks might comment soon (I recall years ago he was convinced the Hobbits were pathological, but no word for a while). Update:'Little People' of Indonesia Seem to Be Distinct Tribe:
But Robert B. Eckhardt, a professor of developmental genetics at Pennsylvania State University and one of several critics of the new-species designation, took issue with the new research. He said the ...
