Nice hobbitses

Some time ago, I made up my mind that I couldn't stand having msn.com as a homepage anymore. I mean, you've seen it. It's sort of a default homepage for PCs, I guess, but I'd had all I could stand.

I've recently settled onto the Anthropology World News page at Texas A&M. Now there I may actually hear something I want to know about.

For example, Homo floresiensis were pretty brawny.

Critics say the finds represent nothing more than human pygmies like those still living on Flores. In their opinion, the centerpiece hobbit find — a partial skeleton of an adult female known as LB1 — is what’s left of a woman who suffered from a developmental disorder that resulted in an unusually small brain and a misshapen skull and lower body.

But arm and leg fossils from LB1 and a second hobbit appear robust, not unhealthy, according to a new study directed by William Jungers of Stony Brook University in New York. The bones display humanlike thickness in the tough tissue that forms the outer shell of most bones, and opposite sides of the limb bones exhibit comparable thickness, a sign of healthy growth, said Stony Brook anthropologist and study coauthor Frederick Grine, who presented Jungers’ paper at the meeting.

Hobbits also possessed much stronger limbs relative to body weight than either Homo sapiens or its presumed predecessor, Homo erectus, Jungers’ team concluded.

I thought there was already evidence found of Hobbit hunting parties. Probably the thing is that even though spears and dead elephants were found on Flores, attribution remained in doubt.

But hey, HoFlo, glad you get to stay in the hominid clubhouse.