I saw the story of “new research” of Homo floresiensis, but the team leader Robert Martin made up his mind about this a long time ago. It’s more of a new press release than a new study. Martin is saying the same stuf he said in the article in the Asian edition of Time this time last year:
“Brains do not shrink proportionally to bodies in a species but remain relatively large,†says Martin. “That’s why the heads of small dogs, for example, are proportionally large for their bodies compared with larger dogs. To get a brain this size, H. erectus would have to have shrunk to about 3% of its previous 60-kg size. That’s about the size of a house cat’s.†Martin says one thing would persuade him—more physical evidence: “Show me eight more similar skulls from the site and I’ll shut up.â€
Maybe Martin is right, but this is the same stuff he already said from looking at the same bones, after he found a microcephalic skull that he found useful for comparison
Oops. It’s actually far more technical than that. I should have checked John Hawks’ site first. Obviously, he actually knows what he’s talking about.