Hobbit Like Humans Show Indonesia Was “Middle Earth”
The good news from the publishing world today is that Professor Mike Moorwood’s book, co-written by Penny Van Oosterzee, relating the 2003 discoveries on the island of Flores, in Indonesia, is due out - the bad news is that it won’t be available here in the UK until May.
And just in case any potential reader is unaware of what exactly the book will address, its title, “A New Human: The Strange Story of the ‘Hobbit’: How the Biggest Discovery in Anthropology Since Lucy Shattered More Than a Century“, should leave few in any doubt as to the nature of his literary discourse discussed in the book’s 272 pages.
“According to research completed by University of New England Professor, Mike Moorwood, the artefacts his group unearthed during a 2003 archaeological dig on Flores Island suggest a kind of “middle earth” existed there, with metre-high humans hunting miniature elephants, giant rodents and Komodo dragons.”
The controversial aspect of these findings has been the discovery of stone tools found in association with the fossil remains, thought to have been too complex to have been made by humans whose heads closely corresponded to the size of a grapefruit - indeed, such has been the antipathy spread in the wake of these findings, that Liang Bua Cave has now been closed indefinitely, effectively preventing any further research which would confirm or deny the claims for an entirely new, and unknown, species of human.
For that, we have Teuku Jacob to thank, who in his role as Indonesia’s chief palaleo-anthropologist, has displayed what I can only describe as an extremely odd, and in my opinion, completely inappropriate attitude to the whole affair. In fact his position on this gives the curious impression that he, and others, have decided that we have no room in the text books, or elsewhere, in which to discuss a new and controversial member of the human family tree, and that no further discussions should take place. Critics of his will long remember the way in which he took charge of the fossils for a while, during which time they suffered considerable, and lasting damage, that still hasn’t been adequately explained away.
I’m not sure if Jacob and his cohorts are planning to publish a book of their own - doubtless someone will wish to respond in kind to Moorwood and Oosterzee’s tome, but until digging in Liang Bua is resumed, and all the evidence has been analysed and assessed, it seems that the resolution to this evolutionary conundrum will continue long into the future.
I’m tempted, in cases like this, where the stakes are so high, to call for some sort of international body to arbitrate, and where necessary, allow for further exploration of sites, which are obviously crucial to our understanding of the distant past, rather than the current paradigm which effectively allows work to be stopped at the behest of a single, nay-saying anthropologist.
Moving on, I was recently contacted by the owner of the linked website, who actually lives on Flores, and who like many others there, is very taken with the idea that their place of residence has been host to such enigmas as the hobbit people, as well as what may be the most ancient mariners of all time, the Homo erectus folks who appear to have navigated the open seas at least 840,000 years ago to reach the island.
In a recent post, he discusses the Ebu Gogo, described here as,
“…a human-like creature (or race of creatures) which appears in the mythology of the people at flores island, nusa tenggara timur, Indonesia, of similar mythological form to the leprechaun or elf. These “little people” are said to be about 3ft tall, covered in hair, pot-bellied and with ears that stick out. They are held to walk somewhat awkwardly and are often said to be “murmuring” in what is assumed to be their own language. It is also said by the islanders that the Ebu Gogo can repeat what is said to them in parrot-like fashion.In one language of Central Flores (Nage ethnic at Boawae subdistric, Ngada Regency) the name means “grandmother who eats anything” (or possibly “grandmother glutton”) from the words ebu “grandmother” and gogo “(s)he who eats anything”.
Although the diminutive Floresians are thought to have become extinct as a result of a volcanic eruption some 12,000 years ago, anthropologist Gregory Forth says that myths and stories about ‘little people’ are common throughout Indonesia, and may reflect the reality of the hobbit people - there are even rumours which suggest a very few of their number may still survive in remote locations on the island of Flores to this very day - I wonder what tales they in turn would be able to tell us.
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