New Hominid Genus Found in Europe! ! !
With a hat tip to Greg Laden, I am very excited to relate that scientists working on a remote island off the coast of Ireland have unearthed the first significant hominid in Europe in decades. In sediments believed to have been preserved by unusual glacial processes from prior to the last two ice ages, perhaps as much as 350,000 years in age, paleontologists originally searching for plant fossils of the genus Trifolium (thought to have evolved in this area) started to find something they did not expect. Distributed among the gravelly sediments in which they were excavating were nodules of both iron ore and flecks of gold, which they certainly did not expect. In an effort to understand this unusual geological occurrence, they opened up a much larger area, only to discover an unusual vertical, almost preternaturally round shaft filled with the same gravelly sediments they had been excavating but with a much denser quantity of the ores.
“I remember that we got very excited,” recalls excavator Albert Sharpe. “We were out looking for plant fossils, and we were finding potentially exploitable metallic ores. I remember quipping to my daughter and faithful assistant, Janet [Munro] that this could have been the beginning of a new era for the impoverished people of Blarney Island.”
Unfortunately, Sharpe and his team were forced to stop excavating by a period of thunder storms and other unusual weather common in this remote part of the North Atlantic. Sharpe remembers: “The weather was so bad, all we could do was hang out in our accommodations and sample the local whiskey. Which is quite good, by the way.”
“After several days of stormy weather, we woke one morning to the sight of puffy clouds against dark blue skies, and the clearest, most beautiful rainbow I’ve seen in my life,” remembers team member Munro. “We went out to the site, and found that there had been quite a bit of erosion. The area where we had found the unusual concentration of ores and the vertical feature was now a huge gaping hole in the ground. It took us all day to obtain the ropes and other equipment we needed for further exploration. It was almost nightfall when we lowered my dad, Dr. Sharpe, down into what looked to me like a very mysterious abyss.”
When Sharpe reached the bottom of this “abyss” and trained his flashlight on the ground, he was shocked and amazed to find the first fossil of what is now the newly named hominid Leprechaunus blarnipithicus.
The hominid is very small, even smaller than the famous “hobbits” of Flores, or any of the smallest individuals in the genus Australopithecus. It has what appears to be a cranial capacity of the same proportion to body size as modern humans, and a fully upright stance, but a full adult stature of between nine and 14 inches.
The plant paleontologists report that the bones and the sediment around the bones had an odd greenish cast.
But the strangest thing of all was to happen later. The skeleton was carefully and painstakingly removed from its resting place at the bottom of the shaft, secured in locally obtained burlap sacks, and transported to the Royal Blarney Museum. Local officials were informed, and the entire community was invited to have a look at the find.
But when the sacks were pulled away to show everyone this remarkable skeleton, it was gone as though it had never existed!
Dr. Sharpe has also since disappeared from the face of the earth, last seen getting into a carriage driven by an odd looking figure with a scythe, and his daughter, Ms. Munro, has moved permanently to the island, and is now happily married to local resident Sean Connery.
“I remember that we got very excited,” recalls excavator Albert Sharpe. “We were out looking for plant fossils, and we were finding potentially exploitable metallic ores. I remember quipping to my daughter and faithful assistant, Janet [Munro] that this could have been the beginning of a new era for the impoverished people of Blarney Island.”
Unfortunately, Sharpe and his team were forced to stop excavating by a period of thunder storms and other unusual weather common in this remote part of the North Atlantic. Sharpe remembers: “The weather was so bad, all we could do was hang out in our accommodations and sample the local whiskey. Which is quite good, by the way.”
“After several days of stormy weather, we woke one morning to the sight of puffy clouds against dark blue skies, and the clearest, most beautiful rainbow I’ve seen in my life,” remembers team member Munro. “We went out to the site, and found that there had been quite a bit of erosion. The area where we had found the unusual concentration of ores and the vertical feature was now a huge gaping hole in the ground. It took us all day to obtain the ropes and other equipment we needed for further exploration. It was almost nightfall when we lowered my dad, Dr. Sharpe, down into what looked to me like a very mysterious abyss.”
When Sharpe reached the bottom of this “abyss” and trained his flashlight on the ground, he was shocked and amazed to find the first fossil of what is now the newly named hominid Leprechaunus blarnipithicus.
The hominid is very small, even smaller than the famous “hobbits” of Flores, or any of the smallest individuals in the genus Australopithecus. It has what appears to be a cranial capacity of the same proportion to body size as modern humans, and a fully upright stance, but a full adult stature of between nine and 14 inches.
The plant paleontologists report that the bones and the sediment around the bones had an odd greenish cast.
But the strangest thing of all was to happen later. The skeleton was carefully and painstakingly removed from its resting place at the bottom of the shaft, secured in locally obtained burlap sacks, and transported to the Royal Blarney Museum. Local officials were informed, and the entire community was invited to have a look at the find.
But when the sacks were pulled away to show everyone this remarkable skeleton, it was gone as though it had never existed!
Dr. Sharpe has also since disappeared from the face of the earth, last seen getting into a carriage driven by an odd looking figure with a scythe, and his daughter, Ms. Munro, has moved permanently to the island, and is now happily married to local resident Sean Connery.