I’ve been following the story of the Flores “Hobbits” for a while. Some of this is new, though. Absolutely fascinating stuff.
So unless the Flores hobbits became more primitive over time — a more-than-unlikely scenario — they must have branched off the human line at an even earlier date.
For Jungers and colleagues, this suggests “that the ancestor of H. floresiensis was not Homo erectus but instead some other, more primitive, hominin whose dispersal into southeast Asia is still undocumented,” the researchers conclude.
Companion studies, published online in the Journal of Human Evolution, bolster this theory by looking at other parts of the anatomy, and conjecture that these more ancient forebear may be the still poorly understood Homo habilis.
Either way, their status as a separate species would be confirmed.
As Charles points out over at LGF this could cause some discomfort amongst creationists. And do watch the video. In spite of some cheesy parts, there are some good interviews and it does a decent job of painting a picture.
While the odds are against it, just how cool would it be to find these guys still alive?