Something to Drink to
Take a seat, close your eyes, drink a frothy Rock Star energydrink and jump-start every elaborate, detailed element of yourimagination. I want you to picture a world that doesn’texist. A mystical world where pint-sized people fight venom-spewinglizards, chase huge rats and hunt people-sized elephants.
You might picture some horrifying scene depicted by one ofHunter S. Thompson’s hallucination-induced free falls inFear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
But let me tell you this world existed. Those Hobbits were ourhuman cousins. And it all happened not so long ago — not inTolkien’s Middle Earth, but on the island Flores nearIndonesia.
Uh-huh.
Two weeks ago, a team of rather curious archeologists fromIndonesia and Australia unearthed a previously unknown species ofhuman, which have now been named Homo floresiensis.
According to the New Scientist, the “discovery is arguablythe most remarkable find in palaeoanthropology for 50years.”
And I’m not trying to spark any incestuous thoughtsuncouth against God, but apparently one of our diminutive cousinswas quite a sexy little minx — the naughty, little, randyrogue.
An article from The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, Australiacharacterized one 18,000-year-old skeleton as the “pin-upgirl of the scientific world” and that “she stands ameter tall, has a brain the size of a chimpanzee and her knucklesreach down to her knees.”
Move over SMU girls, there’s a new diva in town,it’s Carrie the pocket-sized Cavewoman. Mm-hmm.
According to The Daily Telegraph article,”Scientists have pieced together an image of a hairless,dark-skinned dwarf with a comparatively small head, countersunkeyes, flat nose, big teeth and mouth jutting forward with virtuallyno chin.”
Looks like these don’t need to be complemented by UGGboots or Gucci handbags to win my heart, because I’m alreadywrestling with the throes of love for this unattainablewee-lady.
Carrie and the rest of her tiny fleet of Floresians “livedon the island [up until] 13,000 years ago, and possibly to historictimes. They were a downsized version of Homo erectus, the easterncousin of the Neanderthals of Europe,” said a New YorkTimes article.
Okay. Woo! Rah-rah! We found some bones! Let’s go have aparty.
Finding the Floresians themselves is a superb accomplishment,and it’s wonderful that these Encino Man-esque”betties” even lived alongside Homo sapiens for sometime.
But the team that discovered them provided some very interestinginsight into our ancestors’ minds I think is much moresignificant than mere unearthing.
According to The New York Times article, “there isevidence that the Floresians knew the use of fire. And there is asuite of stone tools, considerably more sophisticated than anyknown to have been made by Homo erectus. That is striking evidenceof their cognitive abilities.”
Dr. Michael J. Morwood, an archeologist at the University of NewEngland in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia, said in The NewYork Times article “[the Floresians] almost certainly hadsome form of language.”
Does everyone understand the boundless possibilities if theseminiscule creatures actually did speak an intelligiblelanguage?
This is huge!
Just imagine, tens of thousands of years ago therecould’ve been a society as proficient as ours today.
Maybe the Floresian society had cultural norms just like modernHomo sapiens have. Quite possibly, their daily lives closelyresembled ours.
I think they must have had little schools for the [literally]little cave children. There was cave recess and cave detention forthose who acted up during cave algebra.
The Floresians could have had families they actually recognizedand wanted to spend time with — except for cave teenagers whodealt with their cave angst by being ungrateful toward their caveparents.
As a young male Floresian matured, I think it’s definitethat when he went on dates, his significant other’s parentsgrilled him with questions in the den of the cave house.
“Dunder, when are you going to bring Roxy home?” aparent would indubitably ask. “Where are you going? Willthere be any drugs or one-eyed, oompa-loompa-eating monsters there?Watch out for flying, acid-spitting dragons on the way home. Anddon’t be late!”
Tiny co-ed Floresians would gather around the cave televisionset every so often to watch the first season of “Sex and theCave City” on DVD. The whole time they would laugh and chirp,”You’re so a Miranda!”
One Thursday night I’m sure millions of Floresians slappedtheir knees, erupting in a sea of hysterical laughter when DavidFlorehasselhoff got busted for a DUI, earning him a sentence of sixmonths in an alcohol program.
The little race absolutely would’ve had the concept of ayearly calendar, which is why the Floresian version of Mack Mayowould be incredibly excited for the season premier of “TheO.C.” on the Floresian Nov. 4 — or today for us Homosapiens.
And that, my friends, is exactly why the easy-going,tree-hopping cave-buggers are graced with thecheer-of-the-week.
Even though you were clean wiped off the face of the planet withone mighty, fell swoop of a meany-head volcano roughly 12,000 yearsago, I drink to you, pretty little, big forehead-havingancestors.
You conquered fire. You made elaborate tools to build somesweet, grungy huts for your hot wives. You may have even overcomethe collective problem of civilized language. I just hope you neverhad to endure a nonstop, painful overloading of politics like yourdistant cousins, the Homo sapiens, had to withstand this year.
I miss you, Homo floresiensis. I miss you a lot. When wilt thouevolveth againeth?
Mack Mayo is a junior English major. He may be reached [email protected].
