Headline News: We Have Hobbit Ancestors....

[Child of the 7th Age]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man
Am I the only person here not surprised by this development? Given the diversity of life on our planet, it is hardly surprising that a miniature form of primitive human would evolve given the right environmental conditions.

SpM -

What surprises me the most is not that three-foot humanoids existed on this planet but that we've actually managed to come up with some concrete evidence regarding their existence in the 21st century, and that I have instantaneous access to all the details on the internet so quickly.

As a child, I devoured every account of an archaeological or paleontological expedition that I could find. I was quite convinced that I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Carter and Schliemann or perhaps of Mary Leakey. Way before the internet, such accounts just weren't instantaneously available to members of the general public who did not have general access to research libraries. Gosh, I even remember when you couldn't get a subscription to National Geographic unless you had been "invited" to join. I remember pouring through back issues in the library since such things were a luxury in a working class home.

Plus, at that time, scientists had such a more limited view of the past and had less technology available to them. Carbon-14 dating for example, only came about in the late 1940s, and it took a while to perfect. If I had suggested that dinosaurs were warm blooded or that birds and dinosaurs were closely related on the evolutionary tree, most 'experts' would have keeled over laughing. And if I had argued the existence of a three-foot humanoid, I hate to think where I would have been dragged off to!

So I guess I do find such discoveries amazing in the context of how I've seen such things change in my own lifetime.

If Tolkien was alive today, I think he'd agree that we've both gained and lost something in our modern world. We've certainly gained improved techniques for doing such scientific research and the abilty to transmit new ideas very quickly over the face of the earth, hopefully acquiring a more accurate and rich perspective on where we come from. It's quite amazing.

Yet we've lost or are losing touch with other aspects of our past, aspects of who we actually are: the wise grandmother Lalwende describes who could see and accept the boggart at her front door. In one sense, she had closer links to that folk consciousness or mythology that people used to understand their world than we have with all our book learning.

In other threads, people have raised the question of why we can't produce fantasy that rivals that of Tolkien (or T.H. White). Shippey has made an interesting argument that we will not see the likes of such authors again because they were a product of a unique system of education and a world that could still glimpse a boggart at its front door. That world has passed on, and even the formal education that produced a philologist like Tolkien. Shippey may be right or wrong but it is an interesting idea.

Both sides --scientific knowledge and myth--have something to say to us. 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!

[davem]

Anyone who's read Shippey knows that Tolkien's (original at least) intent was to re-create our (England's, that is) lost mythology - re-construct it rather than invent a whole new one. And as stories of a race of small, dark people run through Celtic myth as the aboriginal inhabitants of the British Isles its clear Tolkien was drawing on these accounts. Same, obviously, with Elves, Dwarves, Dragons & all the other inhabitants of Me (even the talking foxes!).

How far do we push the idea, though? Tolkien, at least in the beginning, seems almost to have believed that there was a coherent system of beliefs which could be reconstructed to the point where we could have the mythology our ancestors had in virtually the form they had it.

To be serious for a moment, these 'hobbits' may have been the origin of the stories of the 'small, dark people' - I've read folktales which anthropologists believe originated in the stone age - tales must originate at some point, & if they are powerful or beloved enough, why wouldn't they pass down from generation to generation within oral cultures?

But this strays into 'Canonicity' - how 'true' (leave aside True) are Tolkien's stories? How much literal 'truth' is in them (again. leave aside 'moral' Truth).If 'Hobbits' have a basis in fact - however distorted the stories of them have become (because Tolkien didn't even invent the name 'hobbit' - its in the Denham Tracts) - then can we look to find Elves & Dwarves (or some race which inspired the stories of those mythical beings) in our ancient history? If not, then how else do we account for the stories?

We seem to be living in a time when legends are springing from the grass, & I suppose a Jungian would call that significant. Fifty years since the publication of LotR, the final movie about to appear, & someone digs up a fossilised hobbit. The real question, perhaps, is what that means to us.

Does it have a significance beyond the merely curious? Why do we latch onto it? Why do we connect it to 'our' beloved hobbits?Are we as free from the 'irrational' dimension as we like to believe? Is this discovery significant for scientific reasons, in that it tells us something about our history, or is it really significant because it makes it possible to believe that our dreams might not be 'just' dreams? Maybe there really were hobbits, once upon a time; & Dragons & Elves; & high beauty, purged of the gross, & a light beyond the borders of the world & all the rest of that romantic stuff.

[The Saucepan Man]

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?

[Rimbaud]

Well, actually...no. I rather like the fantasy of imagining the stories to be true. That daydream would not be sullied by being ratified. If they did find 'stocky, bearded cave-dwelling corpses' or elven skeletons, I would be tremendously excited, and no story containing a fantastical interpretation of such a physiognomy would be spoilt for me.

And as for dragons, of course they existed, silly.

[HerenIstarion]

Seconding Rimbaud here.

Know what? Discussion starts to resemble something with capital C at the head of it.

Did grapefruit-headed hobbits trade for goods in shops on certain borders, can't help asking myself...

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

First, a clarification: I have already said in that other, more mirthful thread on this topic, that my father is an “evolutionary biologist.” Well, before somebody calls me on this, let me quickly say that such a formulation is rather redundant: it’s like saying a “flying pilot” or a “teaching professor” insofar as the study of biology (the study of living organisms) is, by definition, the study of evolution (how those organisms have changed through time). My father is, more properly, an endocrinologist, zoologist and comparative anatomist; he is also deeply interested and well-versed in the theory of natural selection.

(Parenthetical Comment: I usually try not to be too overtly provocative or confrontational, but on this one point I will be. . .pre-emptively so. If there are any creationists reading this, please don’t waste your time and mine by trying to argue that evolution is wrong, or didn’t happen, or whatever it may be that you try to argue. Evolution is a fact. I will not say anything about this ever again in the Downs, either in forum or via PM, so if you want to fight with someone about this, go find somebody else.)

This is why I find this discovery and the subsequent discussions in this thread to be so interesting, for it has got me to thinking about the evolution of the peoples in Middle-Earth. We all know how careful Tolkien was to get it ‘right’ in the creation of his secondary world: that it have and obey its internal laws, but that it be compatible with the laws of the primary world. Well, I think – either by dint of extreme care, foresight or luck – he has given us a world in which the theory of natural selection is borne out perfectly!

At the end of the Third Age, all of the talking races in Middle-Earth are in decline, except for Men. The reasons for this are wonderfully in line with natural selection: Men are not ‘better’ than the other races in any way; they are not aggressively wiping out the other races, nor are they in direct competition with them for resources. All of these views are traditional and widespread misinterpretations of what Darwin meant when he said “survival of the fittest.” What that oft-quoted, rarely understood phrase actually means is that those species that are better suited to their environment will have a better chance of reproducing than those that are not. The “fitness” is not a measure between species, but between a species and its environment. This is where I get to Tolkien:

At the end of the Third Age, the Elves are dwindling because they are no longer suited to the environment of Middle-earth. The magical woods and glades that housed them are disappearing; in fact, the realms that they are suited for disappeared at the end of the First Age, but little islands were created by a few powerful Elves to keep the culture alive. With the loss of these islands, there is no longer an environment suitable for Elf habitation, and thus they disappear. They might have had a chance to survive in M-E longer, but for their very low rate of reproduction; without being able to create new offspring who might be willing or able to move into new environments, they are doomed to pass with the passing of their natural habitat.

Much the same is true for the Dwarves. Their habitats, in addition to being scarce (mountains with caves and rich veins of ore) are also dependent upon a limited resource. What happens with the mines of their realms are used up? They also seem to suffer from the same low reproduction rates as do the Elves, this time from a scarcity of Dwarven women.

Hobbits are an interesting case. They have high rates of reproduction (c.f. Rose Cotton!) and are eminently suited to a variety of habitats in Middle-Earth. Their downfall is that they are unwilling or unable to leave the Shire. The Fell Winter nearly wiped them out, but there is no evidence that any of them left to colonise new environments. Hobbits are the perfect example of a species that is the victim of its own success. Sometimes it will happen in a stable environment that a species will become so well adapted to it, that they can no longer dissociate themselves from it without going extinct. So just like the new ‘hobbit’ species discovered in Indonesia, Tolkien’s Hobbits are trapped by the Shire as much as they are protected by it. For as long as the Shire is there, they will do fine. But as soon as there is an ice age, or a volcano or even an extended period of drought or rain brought on by climactic shift, they are doomed. And if there is one thing that evolution has taught us, there is no such thing as an eternally stable environment. Change is the order of the day.

And this is why Men do so well in the Fourth Age. With the passing of Sauron and the Noldor, the stasis that had been maintained in certain parts of Middle-Earth goes with it, and change begins to accumulate at an increasing rate. The Elves see their environment disappear, the Dwarves, presumably, consume their limited resources and are pushed into an ever narrower and smaller niche in pursuit of what they need, and the Hobbits remain in the Shire, growing ever closer to it until they share its fate. Only Men are equipped to survive because they are the only ones who are adapted to live in every environment in Middle-Earth. Think about this: like Elves they are happy in places like Ithilien; like Hobbits they do well in richly rolling hills (Bree, and environs); like the Dwarves they work well in mountains and with stone (Minas Tirith; the Hornburg); and they even inhabit environments that the others shun (the grasslands of Rohan).

I write all this not just to talk about evolution (which would be reason enough) but to point out just how surprisingly true to life Tolkien’s imagined world is, even in ways he does not intend it to be. Tolkien’s view of his peoples is clearly and explicitly creationist, but he is so careful an observer of life, and so particular a creator of life-forms, that they follow the established laws of the primary world (evolution)! Is it any wonder, then, that we should find that the primary world has creatures in it that not only resemble his imagined beings, but that they shared the same fate? Remember, the ‘hobbits’ of Indonesia, like the Hobbits of the Shire, were victims of their own success: they had become so perfectly adapted to their environment , that they were unable to spread beyond it (there were no other islands nearby with Komodo dragons and little food resources), and were thus totally wiped out when that environment was!

Hope my Dad will be proud of me for this!

[Noxomanus]

Encore!

Great post and I certainly agree but I'm sure you'll end up on the 'ignore' list of a number of other posters. Never mind that