New Homo Floresiensis Dates May Quash Cryptozoology Theories About ‘Hobbits’
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on July 5th, 2016
Dr. Jeff Meldrum says:
So were are told that Homo floresiensis may have survived from 2.0 – 2.5 mya until at least 50kya [Note: cranial analysis has established the Hobbit has no close affinity to homo erectus], but it is “unlikely to have survived from 50kya until the present.” Oh really??? Where’s the logic in that assumption?
~ Dr. Jeff Meldrum
New Homo Floresiensis Dates May Quash Cryptozoology Theories About ‘Hobbits’
So the origins of the species are still being investigated, but the new dates for the nine skeletons recovered from Liang Bua cave are interesting as well. Originally placed at 100,000-12,000 years ago, Homo floresiensis would have overlapped in time with modern humans, long after H. erectus and even Neandertals essentially disappeared. One of the more fascinating proposed connections between the “hobbits” and humans comes from Indonesian folklore, in the form of Ebu Gogo and Orang Pendek.
Orang Pendek is a creature that supposedly lives in the mountainous areas of Sumatra. Sightings of the creatures have been reported for hundreds of years by locals, Dutch colonists, and even western scientists. It is described as a primate that walks on two feet and is about 30-60″ tall — which fits with the description of the “hobbits” from their skeletal remains. People report that Orang Pendek have human-like noses, strong upper bodies, but more primate-like legs and walking gait — the last part of this description doesn’t fit with H. floresiensis. These creatures are also reported in Sumatra only, an island that is quite a ways from Flores.
But Flores boasts another legendary group, the Ebu Gogo, whose name in one of the languages of Flores means “grandmother who eats everything.” The Ebu Gogo are reported to be bipedal creatures around 60″ tall who speak their own language and can mimic human speech. Legends about the Ebu Gogo go back to early western exploration of the island by the Portuguese, who heard that the creatures stole food and kidnapped children. Another story holds that the Ebu Gogo were killed by modern humans who arrived on the island from elsewhere in Indonesia — except for one pair that retreated into the forests, whose descendants still live there.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Yeah, the absence of fossils in one specific cave is a poor indication of the extinction of a species. It might seem odd that a hominid that had previously used the cave would stop doing so, but we have the example of Native Americans, who definitely used Mammoth Cave until about 2000 years ago to mine for gypsum and for a handful of burials — and then stopped, apparently never entering the cave again.