Seems there's a bit of a threat to the "concrete" theories of evolution, man's origination in Africa, and hominid species.
Which concrete theories of evolution are in dispute? The dispute about H. floresiensis is whether they are homo sapiens with a genetic or endocrine disorder or a new species of homini and if so, how are they descended from or related to h. erectus. The theories of evolution are not in dispute, what is in dispute is how this particular group evolved and what that means in relation to how and when humans evolved. So the rest of your sentence is true, just not the first part.
Hominini is the tribe of Homininae that comprises Humans (Homo), and two species of the genus Pan (the Common Chimpanzee and the Bonobo), their ancestors, and the extinct lineages of their common ancestor (but see the discussion below for alternative vies). Members of the tribe are called hominins (cf. Hominidae, "hominids"). The subtribeHominina is the "human" branch, including genus Homo and its close relatives, but not Pan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominini
The discoverers (archaeologist Mike Morwood and colleagues) proposed that a variety of features, both primitive and derived, identify these individuals as belonging to a new species, H. floresiensis, within the taxonomic tribe of Hominini. Hominini currently comprises the extant species human (the only living member of the genus Homo), bonobo (genus Pan), and chimpanzee (genus Pan); their ancestors; and the extinct lineages of their common ancestor. [1] [3] The discoverers also proposed that H. floresiensis lived contemporaneously with modern humans (Homo sapiens) on Flores. [4] Doubts that the remains constitute a new species were soon voiced by the Indonesian anthropologist Teuku Jacob, who suggested that the skull of LB1 was a microcephalic modern human. Two studies by paleoneurologist Dean Falk and her colleagues (2005, 2007) rejected this possibility. [5] [6] [7] Falk et al. (2005) has been rejected by Martin et al. (2006) and Jacob et al. (2006) and defended by Morwood (2005) and Argue, Donlon et al. (2006).
Two orthopedic researches published in 2007 both reported evidence to support species status for H. floresiensis. A study of three tokens of carpal (wrist) bones concluded there were similarities to the carpal bones of a chimpanzee or an early hominin such as Australopithecus and also differences from the bones of modern humans. [8] [9] A study of the bones and joints of the arm, shoulder, and lower limbs also concluded that H. floresiensis was more similar to early humans and apes than modern humans. [10] [11] In 2009, the publication of a cladistic analysis [12] and a study of comparative body measurements [13] provided further support for the hypothesis that H. floresiensis and Homo sapiens are separate species.
Critics of the claim for species status continue to believe that these individuals are Homo sapiens possessing pathologies of anatomy and physiology. A second hypothesis in this category is that the individuals were born without a functioning thyroid, resulting in a type of endemic cretinism (myxoedematous, ME). [14]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis#Laron_syndrome_hypothesis
Flores Man Denied Status As New Species
Poor Flores Man just can't rest in peace. All year a controversy has raged about whether the bones found in 2003 on the remote Indonesian island of Flores represent a new species. Australian paleoanthropologist Peter Brown insists the skeleton is a new type of human who should be called Homo floresiensis. Others say he's simply a pygmy, five feet tall, who had microcephaly, a condition that results in a small, oddly shaped skull.
That's why Robert Eckhardt, a paleoanthropologist at Pennsylvania State University, and a team have intently analyzed the 18,000-year-old bones. The group's research papers, undergoing peer review, are unequivocal. "Homo floresiensis," says Eckhardt, "is not a valid new human species."
Brown is dismissive. "Robert Eckhardt is thick as a plank," he says. Working on the joint Australian-Indonesian team that discovered Flores Man, Brown concluded that the brain shape, long arms, and chinless jaw indicate descent from an early hominid. He also believes Flores Man is, in fact, a woman who stood less than four feet tall. But Brown has lost his ability to prove his case. The Indonesian government has not renewed the Australians' permits to excavate on Flores, ending his chances to find a second skull to support the theory. Compounding the problem, the bones have been badly damaged. The pelvis is shattered and the jaw broken, injuries that Brown and Teuku Jacob, a senior Indonesian archaeologist and proponent of the pygmy theory, blame on each other. —Zach Zorich
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/jan/archaeology-copy
66 Hobbit Wars Heat Up
When small, humanlike bones were discovered in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, anthropologists knew they had found something exceedingly odd. But what? A new species of dwarf people? A colony of pygmy freaks? Half-joking, some researchers simply referred to the remains as "hobbits."
The evidence from 2006 has sharpened the speculation. In September Penn State evolutionary biologist Robert Eckhardt published a paper attacking the idea that Flores Man was a separate species of hominin, related to Homo erectus, that lived in isolation as recently as 13,000 years ago. That idea is championed by Peter Brown of the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, a codiscoverer of Flores Man.
Eckhardt argues that the bones share many features, such as rotated teeth and a receding chin, with the Rampasasa pygmies living today near the cave where the remains were found. He notes that the average Rampasasa is just a foot taller than Flores Man. "They may have been going through a temporary food shortage that made them small even for pygmies," he says. In addition, his team found that the most complete specimen of Flores Man was so misshapen that the individual likely suffered from some sort of developmental abnormality, which might explain why the brain was so small.
But when anatomists at Stony Brook University in New York examined the Flores specimens at the request of Brown's team, they supported that group's very different interpretation. They found that Flores Man's shoulders were hunched slightly more forward than in modern humans, and the extraordinarily short legs ended in long feet. Such features seem to tag the Flores people as a separate species, not pygmy versions of modern humans. In addition, some of the oldest Flores remains date back before modern humans were thought to be in the area, which suggests that Flores Man was a distinct species. These little remains could rewrite the story of modern human evolution, so don't expect the debate, or the tempers, to cool down anytime soon.
Jeffrey Winters
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jan/paleontology/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C#66
In one comparative study [subscription required], anthropologist Adam Gordon, now an assistant professor at the University of Albany, along with colleagues at George Washington University, found that the skull of LB1, nicknamed “the hobbit,” was “well outside the range of modern human variation,” according to Gordon. “When you consider the relationship between size and shape of the skull, [it] is most similar to Homo habilis,” a small hominid that disappeared more than a million and a half years ago.
In another study, paleoanthropologist William Jungers of Stony Brook University in New York studied the foot of the hobbit and found it, true to its namesake, strikingly large relative to the size of the body, with very short big toes. Jungers argues that this foot structure links the hobbit to earlier hominids. Claims that they were diseased humans, Jungers says, “are ridiculous.”
But Robert B. Eckhardt, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State University, notes that the DNA isolated from the remains matches that of Homo sapiens, and no study has ruled out the possibility that the hobbit was a human with a developmental abnormality.
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/085
