#paleoanthropology #evolution #HomoFloresiensis
"On the other hand, 'how can you prove something doesn’t exist? You can’t,' Tocheri says.
Finding a physical specimen first isn’t the only way to make a discovery, according to Forth. 'For me as an anthropologist, evidence that Flores Islanders have actually seen living creatures that closely correspond to their descriptions of ‘ape-men’, and therefore Homo floresiensis, is the best among several explanations for what they told me,' he says.
Forth isn’t equating the unearthing of H. floresiensis bones with a definite conclusion about the hobbits still existing. But he’s not ruling out the possibility.
Such a discovery in the genus Homo 'would be extraordinary. Not only would it contradict the current orthodoxy; it would also overturn current theories of hominin evolution and raise questions about what it means to be ‘human’—or ‘not quite human,’' Forth says. The finding would also demonstrate to people in the academic world that 'ordinary folk' have knowledge of local species, which scientists—who flit in and out of an area for a specific study—often do not, he adds.
Since the hobbit was discovered, the field of paleoanthropology has seen rapid progress, such as the discovery of the species Homo naledi of South Africa and the Siberian Denisovans, who may be closely related to Neanderthals. Scientists have also sequenced Neanderthal DNA fragments from bones, and identified Neanderthal and Denisovan genetic codes in modern humans—which means the three species once interbred.
The closest any former human species comes to still being alive is by being a part of us. So the idea that an entirely extinct human is still living clandestinely among us is shocking, Tocheri says. He agrees with Forth that it would be amazing to find the descendants of these people—considered gone 500 centuries or so ago—still populating a small pocket on Flores.
Before finding the hobbit, researchers looked at human origins in a slightly more linear way. They knew some species likely branched off from earlier relatives—an effect of evolutionary pressures like climate change—in different times and places. For example, H. sapiens evolved mainly from Homo heidelbergensis, but so did Homo neanderthalis. Various species living at the same time may have met and interbred as well. We know that our own species has some Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA. All this simultaneous evolution and intermingling makes the traditional 'family tree' more of an interconnected bush, Tocheri explains."
https://archive.ph/mfrHV#selection-835.0-847.440
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