Wrist bones aid ‘hobbit’ theory
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Since the fossil discovery of the diminutive Homo floresiensis in Indonesia in 2003, researchers have wrangled over whether the hobbit-size hominid was an ancestral species of human or was a deformed Homo sapiens.
Researchers from the National Museum of Natural History reported Friday in the journal Science that wrist bones of the 3-foot-tall creature are basically indistinguishable from those of an African ape or early hominid, and nothing like that seen in modern humans and Neanderthals. That indicates that it is an early hominid and not a modern human with a physical disorder, they contend.
