Early access until tomorrow morning, then premiere with JMG live chat at 7pm eastern (Patreon)

Why the Flores Hobbit May Still Be Alive w/ Dr. Gregory Forth

In 2003 on the island of Flores in Indonesia something was discovered that was both surprising and mysterious. A previously undiscovered hominoid related closely to modern humans. Termed at the time a hobbit, this species lived on Flores Island until modern humans arrived sometime around 50,000 years ago. The problem with the find is that skeletons of Homo Floresiensis are very sparse, with only nine individuals known, and most evidence coming from a single find site located in a single cave. It’s since been determined that Homo Floresiensis was an early species of Homo, but a sister species of homo habilis, as opposed to being examples of unusual modern humans. Just how long after the arrival of modern humans homo floresiensis survived is hotly debated, but it has been advanced that they may have still been around as recently as 12,000 years ago. That’s getting really recent for another hominoid other than homo sapiens. But that’s all based on limited paleontological evidence, what of evidence from anthropology? As it turns out the peoples of Flores island have stories about so called ape-men that were short, and not quite human. These stories stand out a bit differently from the usual stories in anthropology that are often mystical in nature, here we have people telling stories of a small human-like creature living in the forest, along with fossil evidence that such a thing once did, and would have certainly interacted in some way with the arrival of modern humans to the island. So are these stories remnants of events that happened tens of thousands of years ago and may be among the oldest preserved stories on planet earth, or it’s also plausible that they may not be that old, and homo floresiensis survived far longer than we currently know. The discovery of Homo floresiensis: Tales of the hobbit https://www.nature.com/articles/514422a Youtube Membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw/join Podcast: https://anchor.fm/john-michael-godier/subscribe Apple: https://apple.co/3CS7rjT More JMG https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnMichaelGodier Want to support the channel? Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EventHorizonShow Follow us at other places! @JMGEventHorizon Music: https://stellardrone.bandcamp.com/ https://migueljohnson.bandcamp.com/ https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/ https://aeriumambient.bandcamp.com/ FOOTAGE: NASA ESA/Hubble ESO - M.Kornmesser ESO - L.Calcada ESO - Jose Francisco Salgado (josefrancisco.org) NAOJ University of Warwick Goddard Visualization Studio Langley Research Center Pixabay #anthropology #fossils