This Wouldn't Have Been Written in 1936
Traditional media wants to be read, and words things in a particular way.
Scientists have discovered man-like creatures that apparently lived in Indonesia 18,000 years ago. The creatures were three-feet tall.
So how are they referenced in the news story? Simple - as hobbit-sized humans. Argh. (Emphasis mine.)
Scientists in Australia have found a new species of hobbit-sized humans who lived about 18,000 years ago on an Indonesian island in a discovery that adds another piece to the complex puzzle of human evolution.
The partial skeleton of Homo floresiensis, found in a cave on the island of Flores, is of an adult female that was 3 feet tall, had a chimpanzee-sized brain and was substantially different from modern humans.
It shared the isolated island to the east of Java with miniature elephants and Komodo dragons. The creature walked upright, probably evolved into its dwarf size because of environmental conditions and coexisted with modern humans in the region for thousands of years....
Local legends tell of hobbit-like creatures existing on islands long ago but there has been no evidence of them....
The new species, dubbed "Flores man," is thought to be a descendent of Homo erectus, which had a large brain, was full-sized and spread out from Africa to Asia about 2 million years ago.
The new species became isolated on Flores and evolved into its dwarf form to conform with conditions, such as food shortages. Flores, which was probably never connected to the mainland, was home to a variety of exotic creatures including a dwarf form of the primitive elephant Stegodon....
Brown and his colleagues have found the remains of seven other dwarf individuals at the same site since the first find.
"The other individuals all show similar characteristics, and over a time range that now extends from as long ago as 95,000 years to as recently as 13,000 years ago -- a population of hobbits that seemed to disappear at about the same time as the pygmy elephants that they hunted," said Bert Roberts, one of the authors of the Nature study.
Next we'll find out that they had hairy feet, ate mushrooms, and lived in holes in the ground. Ring a bell?
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