Allan Shumaker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "Teuku Jacob, a professor at Gadjah Mada
> University, who led the human anthropology
> research team, said 80 per cent of the Rampapasa
> villagers were small, with most male adults under
> 145cm and female adults about 135cm."
>
> While 4'9" is short even by Indonesian standards
> it hardly compares with the 100 cm (3' 3")
> estimates for the 'Hobbits'.

1) "Under".....

2) Wasn't the Hobbit skeleton they got the height off a female? ("most" adult females from this village are UNDER 4'5"). This narrows the diffence slightly.

3) After 18,000 years of admixture with taller folk who migrated into Indonesia, what do you expect? Some people in the village are "normal" sized, and one very short male (son of a very short father & paternal grandfather) was found in another village some months ago. So intermarriage HAS been taking place between these two sizes of Indonesians. Just as with African pygmies, you'd get taller pygmies & shorter "outsiders", due to backcrossing "halfbreeds*" onto each population.

(*I'm mixed blood myself, so I'm allowed to say this without offense

Kenuchelover.


> Carl Zimmer has an interesting article on The Loom
> with a translation of the original article from
> Kompas.
>
>