Grandpa the Hobbit

In a paper published in the last issue of Acta Anthropologica Romana (March, 2007), the Russian anthropologist Foma Feodorovitch claims having discovered the correct evolutionary lineage of Homo sapiens. If he is right, our species is the result of a hybridization (interbreeding between Homo neanderthaliensis and Homo floresiensis).

While the Neanderthal is a well-known character in our culture (a kind of funny one actually, always there when one is willing to make us realize we’re acting boorish), the Homo floresiensis is rather a mysterious creature, with an uncertain place in the order of being.

In September 2003, Peter Brown and his team discovered in Flores Island (Indonesia) an almost complete fossilized skeleton of a 30 years woman. The discovery was puzzling enough to determine Brown postponing the publication of a paper announcing it for about a year. Only after some further extensive field investigation, which brought into light the remains of 6 other individuals, the anthropologists found the guts to make public their conclusion: there was a formerly unknown hominid species, which Brown named Homo floresiensis. The floresiensis people (“Hobbits”, as anthropologists nicknamed them) were as heavy as 50 pounds, about 3 feet high, completely covered with fur, and had a little-tiny skull with a dull-like capacity of 23.18 cubic inches; they knew how to make tools and mastered the fire; they lived exclusively on their island for about 80,000 year and said being extinct about 20,000 years ago, after a volcanic irruption. The anthropologists widely agree that the hobbits’ ancestors (descendants of Homo erectus) left Africa one million years ago, crossed Asia, and sailed/swam from Java to Flores Island.

Sure thing, one can easily notice that these are some pieces of very arguable evidence. Shortly after Brown published his paper, Robert Martin (anthropologist at the Field Museum in Chicago) exposed his skeptical theory in Science; according Martin, the fossils discovered by Brown did not suggest the existence of a species but rather the subsistence of a microcephalic person, presumably a Homo sapiens. In drawing this conclusion, Martin stressed that 1) the skull/body ratio in Hobbits was quite unusual among a wide range of mammals and 2) the Hobbits’ tools were oddly similar to those made by sapiens at the time. The microcephalic theory was rebuilt some months later by the Indonesian anthropologist Teku Jacobs, who could touch the fossils with his bare hands.

But, as Dean Falk and William Jungers observed, if the fossils represented the remains of some microcephalic dudes, then the Flores Island site should be considered a village of idiots (don’t worry, I’m aware of what this implies J). And eventually the anthropologists got used to think that there actually was a hominid species they call Homo floresiensis. And the debate softly died, and the undergrads were taught that 30,000 years ago, at the time the Lascaux and Altamira caves were painted, there were three hominid species coexisting on the Earth. And the normal science found its moment of grace and fulfilling. And everything was still and quiet.

Nevertheless, last Monday Foma Feodoriovitch attempted to disturb this peaceful scientific picture. In his rather aggressive paper, he claims that modern man is a hybrid, the product of a genetic cocktail mixing Neanderthal and hobbit genes. Comforted by the analysis of the physical anthropological data, Feodorovitch convincingly argues that modern man’s physical characteristics couldn’t be what they are unless our species was a mix combining the Neanderthal roughness and the Hobbit’s delicacy and dullness.

Completely aware of the insubstantiality of the mathematical proofs (“statistical fictions”, as he ironically calls them), Feodorovitch bases his theoretical construction on the interpretation of some highly controversial archeological evidence. The Russian anthropologist believes that a large Nepalese inhabitation (150,000 BC) is the original cradle of human species; here, according Feodorovitch, a population of hobbits heading Java and Flores Island met some Neanderthals and lived happily together for several centuries. At the end, a brand new species sprang out. After the several centuries have past, an important lot of humans left the urheimat (because of a religious reform which led to the election of a new god, as Feodorovitch puts without providing any evidence) and spread all over Asia, Africa, and Europe. And the human odyssey began.