Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Child
I only hope we can keep some sense of wonder alive at the same time as we continue to unearth "hobbit" bones and who knows what else in the future!
|
Oh, I hope so too. And I am confident that we can, even in this highly technological age.
Don't get me wrong. This discovery is highly significant in terms of understanding our evolutionary history. The media description of it as one of the most important finds in this field is certainly not pure hyperbole.
The thing is for me is that, they are not really Hobbits at all. They have been labelled as such by the media (not by Tolkien fans) by virtue of the fact that they were three foot tall and that the term "Hobbit" is one which is familiar to the majority of their readers. The circumstantial similarities (large appetite, presence of volcano, miniature "Oliphaunts" etc) are good for a bit of fun. But the fact remains that these were a primitive human (
homo) species little different from
homo erectus save in size, with a brain the size of a grapefruit, and nothing like the parochial, fun-loving and inherently brave little beings that we know and love from Tolkien's works. And that's why the Tolkien fan within me can't get too worked up about this (although the residual paleontologist within me is terribly excited about it).
But isn't that a good thing? If scientists were to discover evidence of a relatively technologically advanced race of three foot tall humans, physically alike to us in every respect save in height and the hairyness of their feet, who perhaps used umbrellas and liked to drink ale in pubs, wouldn't that go some way to destroying the magic? Or sentient giant winged reptiles? Or stocky beings with beards that lived in cavernous halls beneath mountains? Don't we need these things to remain a possibility rather than a certainty in order to preserve the enchantment that we feel on reading about them?