[appletango]

I'm too lazy, from cfc

by the look of some ancient humans down under, I'd say there was some mixing between us and the erectus population - including the "hobbits" of Flores. During the ice age much of Indonesia was a continent so migrating populations would have not only met up with erectus but eventually carried their genes into Australia. The people of Flores have legends of the little people (hobbits) placing them close by in time, not ~30 kya as the Neandertals were disappearing. My question is: why weren't the erectus peoples of SE Asia evolving in our direction? Or in any direction (other than shrinking like the hobbits)? Seriously, we're told erectus evolved into us - but this didn't happen outside of a small region of E Africa. The erectus populations that left Africa more than a million years ago didn't evolve into us or even in our direction, they stayed in relative stasis or got even bulkier like Neandertals living in ice age Europe. I imagine some of these "Neandertal" genes are actually erectus genes.

And aborigines not only appear more "primitive", they have myths of the "dreamtime" when they were among the first peoples to be created by the gods and their journey. Kow Swamp is a famous fossil of a 10 kyo aborigine with erectus like features. I dont think Neandertals had brains 20% larger, the average we have for them was slightly more than modern humans but we have much greater variation and range. Today's eskimo supposedly have slightly larger brains so the thinking is living in ice age like conditions produces larger brains for whatever reason.