Evolutionary Genealogy!

Aah, yes, our first cousins, the Neanderthals. A lovely family, but so glad we didn't inherit their brains and looks. And now, the discovery of a brand new family of second cousins (on both our maternal and paternal lines... hmmm....). The Hobbits!

The wrist bones of the 3-foot-tall creature, technically known as Homo floresiensis, are basically indistinguishable from an African ape or early hominin-like wrist and nothing at all like that seen in modern humans and Neanderthals, according to the research team led by Matthew W. Tocheri of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

And so glad we didn't get their height gene!

Here is the article in which scientists talk about the new evolutionary links that seem to demonstrate that Hobbit fossils descended from the same evolutionary ggggg....-grandparents that Neanderthals and humans later did. Here is how the article puts it:

“Basically, the wrist [bone] evidence tells us that modern humans and Neanderthals share an evolutionary grandparent that the hobbits do not, but all three share an evolutionary great-grandparent. If you think of modern humans and Neanderthals as being first cousins, then the hobbit is more like a second cousin to both,” Tocheri said.

This does not mean that we are the same as apes, just that we evolved from the same root structure they did. Sadly, the paper trail gets lost before then, so we'll never know our ggggg...-grandparents until someone digs up their bones. I wonder if the Hobbits shrank or if the branch leading to humans and Neanderthals just got taller?