Following on the heels of proof of the existence of hobbits, we now have evidence that they settled much of the world before humans did, and battled dragons just like Bilbo Baggins. Yet more scientific validation of the Lord of the Rings:
How a hobbit is rewriting the history of the human race:
The discovery of the bones of tiny primitive people on an Indonesian island six years ago stunned scientists. Now, further research suggests that the little apemen, not Homo erectus, were the first to leave Africa and colonise other parts of the world….
It remains one of the greatest human fossil discoveries of all time. The bones of a race of tiny primitive people, who used stone tools to hunt pony-sized elephants and battle huge Komodo dragons, were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004….
The end result caused consternation. These remains came from a species that turned out to be only three feet tall and had the brain the size of an orange. Yet it used quite sophisticated stone tools. And that was a real puzzle. How on earth could such individuals have made complex implements and survived for aeons on this remote part of the Malay archipelago?….
That is odd enough. However, new evidence suggests the little folk of Flores may be even stranger in origin. According to a growing number of scientists, Homo floresiensis is probably a direct descendant of some of the first apemen to evolve on the African savannah three million years ago. These primitive hominids somehow travelled half a world from their probable birthplace in the Rift Valley to make their homes among the orangutans, giant turtles and rare birds of Indonesia before eventually reaching Flores.
Maybe they “travelled half a world” because they were on a quest to destroy the Ring of Power.
I look forward to scientific confirmation of the existence of Tolkien’s elves, dwarves, and orcs. As I have previously noted, we already have definitive proof of the existence of ferocious trolls right here at the VC.
Dan Hamilton says:
Remember all the tales of Little People, forest little people.
If they lived in caves, little people in caves, now what might they have been called?
February 26, 2010, 4:58 pmMCM says:
But you wouldn’t encounter them in their caves, you’d encounter them in the forest.
February 26, 2010, 6:30 pmBrett says:
It’s fascinating, isn’t it? As recently as 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, more or less modern homo sapiens were living amongst hominid “cousin” species like the neanderthals, the hobbits, and possibly even Homo Erectus.
February 26, 2010, 7:06 pmJohn A. Fleming says:
There is a big blank spot in the history of mankind. Sometime after 100,000 BC, and long before maritime trade developed between Sumer and Egypt, early Homo sapiens learned to build boats and sail/paddle over the horizon to new lands. While the Cro-Magnons were painting on cave walls, the humans in Southeast Asia were island hopping, building boats, packing up the wife and kids and plants, and heading out to the deep blue sea. Forever unknown tales of courage and tragedy, lost to the mists of time.
February 26, 2010, 7:16 pmLarryA says:
Wait until they find the cave painting of the disk-shape flying object.
February 26, 2010, 7:21 pmMark Field says:
That would explain the Toba eruption.
February 26, 2010, 7:32 pmDon de Drain says:
I have seen really superb cave paintings in southern France. I was told that they are 20,000 + years old. I could not paint that well if I spent 20,000 years trying. And they did it without flashlights.
February 26, 2010, 8:12 pmJonathan says:
February 26, 2010, 9:08 pmMore Scientific Evidence on Prehistoric Hobbits | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] link: More Scientific Evidence on Prehistoric Hobbits [...]
February 26, 2010, 9:15 pmGary Britt says:
Maybe the hobbits kept moving farther out due to falling real estate prices, rising crime, and better malls and schools in the outlying areas?
Gary
February 26, 2010, 10:11 pmTheNino85 says:
Am I the only person that read that quote and thought that would make an amazing iMax movie? Tiny people hunting tiny elephants and Komodo dragons? Riding turtles around?
February 26, 2010, 10:20 pmorca says:
Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects (in general) the small reach of their imagination – not the small reach of their courage or latent power.
February 26, 2010, 10:25 pm- J.R.R. Tolkien
subpatre says:
Yet without this discovery —long after his death— what would you be saying today if Tolkien claimed Hobbits were a real race, now extinct (‘sailed from Middle Earth‘), probably one of the first hominids out of Africa, etcetera.
Perhaps Tolkien believed that quote; or perhaps he simply got tired of evading the questions —from those with small reach of their imaginations— about where he ‘came up’ with his characters.
Tolkien did believe that mythology contains ‘spiritual and foundational truths’, that myth-making is a “creative act” that helps narrate and disclose those truths:”
Tolkien and Lewis argued and fought over this —mythology as truth. In the end Lewis was converted and wrote the ‘real’ story of Psyche and Cupid; his masterpiece Till We Have Faces.
February 27, 2010, 12:58 amButternut says:
The road does indeed go ever on
February 27, 2010, 1:34 amMichael McNeil says:
The discovery and implications of H. floresiensis — and the image of a “race of tiny primitive people, who used stone tools to hunt pony-sized elephants and battle huge Komodo dragons” — is indeed amazing.
However, it’s worth noting in this context that the slightly larger but still tiny, and fully human, Pygmies of Africa (whose menfolk grow to less than 150 cm [4' 11"] tall) — specifically the Mbuti of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo — reportedly in quite recent times, perhaps even today, hunted full sized elephants single handed, armed only with a short stabbing spear.
As anthropologist Colin Turnbull writes (in “The Lesson of the Pygmies,” Chapter 12, Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation, edited and introduced by Roy Richard Grinker and Christopher B. Steiner, Blackwell Publishing, 1997, p. 219):
February 27, 2010, 2:01 amKirk Lazarus says:
The referenced article is of very low quality.
If they are members of the genus homo they must be descended from “some of the first apemen to evolve” just as h.sapiens is. The claim that they are members of homo is stronger than the claim made by the article (which the author seems to think is a noteworthy claim) because australopithecus is not homo. The article then suggests they were descended from h.habilis, but that puts paid to the theory that h.floresiensis was some “living fossil” because its brain size is significantly smaller than that of h.habilis.
February 27, 2010, 5:47 amTomG says:
ah-ha, it’s now apparent … feet too short, brain too small – no wonder it couldn’t
February 27, 2010, 6:06 amclimb out of Olduvai Gorge ;-) Cheers!
FantasiaWHT says:
How do we know these weren’t the dwarves? You did note that they had an unusual aptitude for working with stone.
February 27, 2010, 9:09 amsubpatre says:
That’s the point. Not only did they manage to ‘climb out of Olduvai Gorge‘; but they did it long before our ancestors managed to do it.
That’s a post iron-age comment. Hobbits made stone tools to hunt with; they were small, about three feet tall, of slight build, with long ‘flappy’ feet. Dwarves carved stone; they were also short, stout and powerfully built, with ‘normally’ proportioned feet and hands. An analogy to humans would be ‘shrunk overall’ (hobbits) as opposed to ‘shrunk height and limbs’ for Tolkien’s dwarves; closely resembling several real-world dwarfisms.
February 27, 2010, 10:11 amDikehopper says:
Some very interesting (and some very entertaining) comments. On a very interesting subject. The Volokh Conspiracy has one of the better ‘comments’ sections on the Web.
February 27, 2010, 1:20 pmTomG says:
“That’s the point. Not only did they manage to ‘climb out of Olduvai Gorge’; but they did it long before our ancestors managed to do it.”
Does help explain their eventual demise – gotta be more to it …
February 27, 2010, 1:33 pmCheers
TomG says:
btw, by ‘demise’ I mean ‘extinction’ – of course all us animals die
February 27, 2010, 1:34 pmShelbyC says:
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
February 27, 2010, 2:22 pmTolkein’s History « The Republican Heretic says:
[...] Sat 27 Feb 2010 The Republican Heretic Leave a comment Go to comments Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy offers proof that the Lord of the Rings is an actual historical account. Due to fossils found in [...]
February 27, 2010, 4:28 pmButternut says:
Olduvai gorge, eh. What weasel brain thought of climbing out of olduvai gorge?
Think about it. Oh, this is a lawyer’s thread, aint it? Deal with em like ya found em. Everything is as it are despite thousands of years of erosion. Wow.
Please.
February 27, 2010, 10:10 pmTomG says:
Unless you know otherwise, the Leakey’s find of Zinjanthropus still stands as an all-
February 28, 2010, 6:58 amimportant bolstering of the out-of-Africa theory Butternut (and then their son Richard’s
Skull 1470 to boot). Or does this all belong up on the posting for fables/story telling?
Assistant Village Idiot says:
Gradually migrated half a world away? They must have had great die rolls.
March 1, 2010, 2:43 pmTomG says:
hmmm, Mongolians crossing the Bering and settling down in Anasazi country (secret: walk
March 2, 2010, 5:43 amon ice); the Polynesians landing on Easter Island and reaching Andean country (secret:
build rafts/boats – even if only 1 in 100 make it). The rest of migration: peripatic
story really
Dr Seuss says:
As fascinating as these creature are they really have nothing in the slightest to do with a *fantasy* race of diminutive, furry footed farmers who eat eight odd meals a day. To continue these comparisons merely plays off the popularity of Tolkien’s work,and though inciting popular imagination, belittles the possibilities of who and what they really were – turning them into a joke.
August 26, 2010, 10:42 pmMonday Cave Bear Blogging | theConstitutional.org says:
[...] timeframe for the extinction of the cave bears falls in the same period when, according to other recent scientific findings, prehistoric hobbits “travelled half a world” (no doubt on their quest to destroy the Ring of [...]
August 30, 2010, 1:16 pm