are recently discovered island hobbit remains...

[GATOR MONROE]

charged with potential racist possibilities,and should they become FORBIDDEN ARCHEOLOGY?

[UpsideDownFlag]

1. ...no?

[Carl Brennan]

2. Yes. It is just another

attempt by the bigots of science to overturn the Biblical version of Creationism and should be stopped by whatever means neccessary, including calling it racist and bigoted against short people as well as elevating JR Tolkein to the status of a prophet.

[gordianot]

3. Probably not a race of Homo Sapiens but a different species.

Not archeology, but anthropology. Some interesting stories about this development and there a lot of questions.

[semillama]

4. yes, archaeology

Archaeology is Anthropology or it is nothing, as goes the saying. You can't really separate the two, especially in the case of paleoanthropology.

The material culture of the species is one of the most important things about it, and determining whether or not Homo floriensis made them or not is one of the things that's going to weigh in the argument on whether or not these guys belong in the genus Homo to begin with.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. One man is doing his best to forbid it already

and there are also interesting stories of baby-snatching creatures.

A Dutch palaeontologist, Dr Gert van den Bergh, a member of the team, was first shown the cave at a distance more than a decade ago, after hearing folk tales of the Ebu Gogo, which means "grandmother who eats everything".

People living around the volcano told him a consistent story of the hairy creatures that devoured whatever they could grasp in their long fingers. The villagers tolerated the stealing of food until the Ebu Gogo began to snatch babies and eat them too. They then set upon the little people, forcing them out of the cave with bales of burning grass.
...
While the search for more bones is being planned, a political furore has broken out after a leading Indonesian palaeoanthropologist - with no connection to the find - last week "borrowed" all the delicate remains from six hobbits found at Liang Bua against the wishes of local and Australian team members.

Professor Teuku Jacob, of Gadjah Mada University, who has challenged the view that Homo floresiensis is a new species, had previously taken the skull and bones of the most complete specimen, a 30-year-old female hobbit, from the Indonesian Centre for Archaeology in Jakarta, where they had been kept.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3119620a10,00.html

[GATOR MONROE]

6. shades of N.A.G.P.R.A.

THIS WILL ALL BE MOOT IN OUR LIFETIME. THINGS will be found and inadvertantly divulged that will re-write history reguardless of racial chaos that will follow.

[semillama]

7. How is this related to NAGPRA?

it's typical paleoanthropological hijinx, from what I hear, if you are talking about the confiscation of the remains.

I hope they do find living ones, or recently living ones, though. Can you imagine the fits it would send the fundies into?

[karl meltdown]

8. but no courts or judges can...

coax this backward thinking player into giving them back so yes it's not like nagpra.