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BBC: Flores Man was not human; doesn’t have chin

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From BBC:

Mystery ancient hobbit ‘was not human’

Researchers Balzeau and Charlier:

“The shape of its skull is definitely not the shape of a modern human skull… Even a human with pathologies [disease].”

Taken together, the results of his study, soon to be published in the Journal of Human Evolution, suggest that there is nothing about the skull that fits with any known population of modern human.

In other words, the hobbit is not a small and diseased member of our species, Homo sapiens. It’s something much more exotic.

Well, that tidies things up, right?

Its eyes are very small and its shape is slightly different from H. erectus

Crucially, the hobbit also lacked a chin. And as we have covered before, the very presence of a chin is a defining trait of our species. No other hominins possessed one.

In terms of the overall debate about the hobbit there have been quite a few “final words” on the question of what it was, says Simon Underdown of Oxford Brookes University in the UK More.

We didn’t know that the chin was a membership card. Is it really a defining feature of our species or just something all forms found to date had? Wouldn’t we need more fossils to be sure?

Well, we will just add this one to the file.

See also: Why do only humans have chins?

and

The Little Lady of Flores spoke from the grave. But said what, exactly?

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Comments
All those islands tended to have small varieties of creatures bigger elsewhere. So it might just be a small ape or a big one. its about island controls on creatures. The chin, i suspect, is only a result of us having a bigger head. We uniquely have a big head. this is one reason our women uniquely have trouble birthing. Also the mans chin is bigger then the womens. So not having a big chin could just mean being a small people with small heads. defining people by traits is tricky.Robert Byers
March 1, 2016
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