Is Homo floresiensis (Flores Man / Hobbit) a deformed homo sapien?

Question

There are legends the world over describing both "Giants" and "Little People".

Could this Flores Man and the midwestern US Giant skeletons be evidence of their existence at one time?

Answer 1

What you are questioning here is the Pylogeny of Homo in order to determine where floresiensis fits within this framework. The contemporary evidence predicts that Homo erectus migrated around the globe and eventually evolved into antecessor, which went extinct, and into heidelbergensis. Heidelbergensis then possibly went on to evolve into Homo neanderthalensis and anatomically modern Homo sapiens. This same evidence suggests that Homo floresiensis evolved from Homo erectus independently and were able to remain successful in their environment until the arrival of Homo sapiens. Here is a pylogeny that shows this relationship of evolution over time and between the different geographic regions:
http://users.static.freeblog.hu/c/r/i/criticalbiomass/files/2006_08/hobbit/Homo-phylogeny.jpg

Other pylogenies tell similar stories, but not as well as the first in a geographic sense:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v422/n6934/images/nature01495-f1.2.jpg
http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/images/phylogeny%20copy.jpg
http://www.antiquityofman.com/images/modetechnologies/mode3technologies8.JPG
http://www.accessexcellence.org/BF/bf02/klein/slides/PhyloftheHom.gif

And some even rearrange it a bit, or create different classifications for some fossil findings. This example replaces heidlebergensis with African archaics and Eurasian archaics:
http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/McGrawHill/Encyclopedia/images/CE270300FG0010.gif

And yet others overgeneralize and skip some offshoots and evolutionary steps all together. This example does not just skip the frequently overlooked Homo antecessor, but also completely ignores the existence of Homo heidelbergensis and its significance all together and actually makes the model look a bit funny with the large gap inbetween Homo erectus and the introduction of neanderthal and sapiens:
http://www.micro.utexas.edu/courses/levin/bio304/humanevol/homo.gif

Here is some information about Homo floresiensis on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis

and here is a facial reconstruction of floresiensis:
http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/images/homo_florensiensis_513_fs.jpg

As you can see floresiensis was not a "little man" because it is most likely not even a Homo sapien. The morphological size of floresiensis and their cranial capacity is actually quite typical of the dimensions seen in Homo erectus and not even close to those seen in Homo sapiens.

Answer 2

I am currently reading, "A new human" on the discovery of the fossil H. floresiensis. I am not sure I would recommend it unless you are really interested in this stuff. Floresiensis is in my opinion is most likely the descendent of a primitive homo erectus or Homo habilis. It not likely to be a microencephlic or diseased individual like some have suggested. There are more than two individuals but only one skull. There is evidence from India to New Guinea of small hairy people. On the islands of Java and Sumatra, the Orang Pendek has been reported since Marco Polo and has had recent sightings by a biologist among others. On the island of Flores, there is a story of a group of these little people stealing a baby and then the people killed them. Fossil evidence indicates they lived to at least 12,000 years ago until a volcano killed them on Flores anyway. Orang Pendek are reported excellent swimmers and will dive into the water to escape. If they are indeed good swimmers, there is very little to keep these little people from migrating. There are interesting stories of the little red men of the South and Duende of South America that bear an amazing resemblance to Floresiensis but I digress. Since I believe bigfoot is a real creature, in my opinion it is the likely source of any "giant" evidence. It seems likely to me that Homo ergaster or habilis migrated out of Africa 2 million years ago, moved into Asia (homo georgicus), moved into southeast asia and diverged into possibly three forms, Homo floresiensis, the small, Homo erectus, the medium, and Homo erectus meganthropus the large.

Answer 3

Since only two, I believe skeletons exist there can be no real definitive answers on this. They can speculate all they want but, until more evidence comes in ?

The only "Giants" I know of were the footprints of them in Southern Cal some time ago. It seems to me when Dr. Leaky was alive he went there to do some studies but, never found anything worth the while.
I believe these are "urban legends"

Answer 4

What Midwestern giant skeletons?

Answer 5

There is evidence to suggest that the so-called Homo floresiensis is actually a deformed Homo sapien, yes. The main argument, I believe, is that the specimens are asymmetrical, which is actually a pretty good argument.

It is my understanding that the jury is still out on this, though.

Answer 6

tricky step. research on to the search engines. that will can assist!