Is iodine deficiency the key to the Flores ‘hobbit’ mystery?
The bizarre controversy over the existence of a dwarf ape-like creature dubbed the ‘hobbit’ of Flores has drawn attention to the very real tragedy of iodine deficiency which still affects millions of people. The controversy surrounding the discovery of the fossilised remains on a remote Indonesian island in 2004 has led to one of the most heated anthropological debates in recent history.And in a new chapter to the debate, Emeritus Professor Charles Oxnard recently published a paper with Peter J. Obendorf and Ben J. Kefford that questions whether the Flores hobbit was really just a dwarf cretin and not a new species of human. Professor Oxnard’s paper was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in March 2008. It argues that there is a significant amount of anatomical, circumstantial and environmental evidence to support the hypothesis that the Flores Hobbit was, in fact, a cretin. Since that paper, Oxnard has examined seven skulls and six complete skeletons of cretins in Europe
