Word: homo
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What makes the discovery truly shocking is that the beings were not, like the Pygmies of equatorial Africa, just a short variety of modern Homo sapiens. Dubbed Homo floresiensis, they represent an entirely new twig on the human family tree. Until now, scientists believed that Neanderthals, who died out some 30,000 years ago, were the only human species that coexisted for any length of time with people like us. The chapter of biology textbooks that describes our family tree will have to be rewritten...
Unlike Neanderthals, moreover, H. floresiensis wasn't a close evolutionary relative. Its discoverers are convinced that it evolved from Homo erectus, a primitive branch of humanity whose line was thought to have been entirely supplanted by modern humans about 250,000 years ago. And while the general trend in human evolution over the past 7 million years or so has been toward larger bodies and larger brains, H. floresiensis went the other way: not only was its body small but, again unlike Pygmy or midget H. sapiens, its brain was only about the size of a grapefruit--smaller than that...
From the start, says Morwood, "it was pretty obvious that this was not a modern human. It had a big brow and a massive nutcracker jaw," some of the telltale characteristics of H. erectus. But, he says, "it's very unlike the Homo erectus you get in Java." In fact, he believes the Hobbit most closely resembles specimens found in the Republic of Georgia that date back 1.7 million years. "It's obvious," Morwood says, "that human evolution has been much more complex than we'd realized...
...cats' declining numbers, it neatly avoided a matter-of-fact discussion of the only solution that is not a mere stopgap: finding a way to curb the world's rapidly spiraling population-growth rate. Until we are able to control human overpopulation, any species that competes with Homo sapiens for space and food is doomed. Karla Kellenberger Stow...
...Until we are able to control human overpopulation, any species that competes with Homo sapiens for space and food is doomed." KARLA KELLENBERGER Stow, Ohio...