Magnetic Reversals
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Evolutionary Leaps

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"Hobbits" existed 120,000 years earlier than we thought

17 Mar 10 - The first skeletal  remains of "hobbits" - tiny hominids that stood only one meter (3.25 feet) tall and weighed 65 pounds - were discovered in 2003 on the Indonesian island of Flores.

Handout photo released by the                           University of Wollongong with                          artist's impression of a "Hobbit,"                          a tiny hominid measuring only                          one meter (3.25 feet) tall and                          weighing 65 pounds.

Officially named Homo floresiensis, or Man of Flores, the Hobbit nickname was inspired by the little people of J.R.R. Tolkien's tales

Timing for the arrival of hominins, a term that covers humans and chimps, was previously placed at 880,000 years ago, a date coinciding with the mass death of two other species on Flores, a dwarf elephant called Stegodon sondaari and a giant tortoise named Geochelone. (The date also coincides with the Kamikatsura magnetic reversal.)

However, newly discovered stone age tools buried beneath a layer of volcanic sediment show that Flores was colonised by humans at least 120,000 years earlier than that, Australian and Indonesian scientists reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

 

No human fossils were found with the million-year-old tools, so no one can say with certainty who made them. However, the tools show close similarities to Homo floresiensis tools, which indicates that the tools were built by their ancestors, said lead author Adam Brumm of the University of Woollongong. (This would place the hobbit's arrival closer to the Jaramillo magnetic reversal.)

It remains unclear how and when the hobbits emerged.

Some say they may have descended from branches of the human lineage known as Homo erectus or Homo habilis.

Others argue that the hobbits were just diseased Homo sapiens, with a disorder that made them midget-like.

The hobbit remains that were found in 2003 were only 18,000 years old, which means that they were contemporaries of Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans).

http://www.physorg.com/news188054988.html
Thanks to Benjamin Napier for this link

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Magnetic reversals  -  far more important than we realize