Anthropology is such a contentious field. This whole brouhaha over Homo floresiensis is just typical of the sometimes rather bitter debate over human origins.

The story was reignited this week with the release of a paper in the journal Science. A team from the Field Museum in Chicago stated that the only explanation for the incredibly small brain size of H. floresiensis can only be explained by microcephaly, a genetic disorder that causes small brain sizes. However, the scientists suggest that this microcephalic individual found on Flores was from a tribe of pygmies, explaining the small stature of the skeleton. So maybe her and her tribe of H. erectus were pygmies, and she was a microcephalic. Guess it’s time for another round of rancorous debate.

By the way, microcephalics were frequently exhibited as circus freaks called pinheads by P.T. Barnum and other nineteenth and twentieth century circus impresarios; the most famous was Zip the Pinhead, who was quite famous across the U.S.A. from the 1860’s until 1926.