Although the original skeleton is estimated to be 18,000 years old, a child's radius (arm bone) was found in deposits estimated to be 12,000 years old. |
My take is that this is not a home run yet, because they haven't really figured out what this is. But there's good evidence that supports their hypothesis nicely. |
There's more than one individual, so they can refute the hypothesis that this is just some kind of freak. Also, the data suggest that [the remains are from] a fairly long time span, so that makes it tough to say that this is [due to some sort of disease]. |
What captures the imagination is that dwarfing might have occurred in humans, who often buffer themselves from natural selection through cultural means such as tool production and fire-making, both evident at [the fossil site]. |