I don't feel like I've got enough info on the Flores situation to have an opinion.
But you might like my sister's neanderthal hypothesis. She studied anthropology, and apparently every individual physical characteristic of neanderthals can occasionally be found in modern humans, and some of the characteristics have a gradient going northwards in Europe. So her idea is that not only is there neanderthal DNA in modern humans, but that neanderthals are actually the source of the blue-eyed and blonde characteristics.
The problem isn't so much getting DNA from moderns (although this is good) but getting enough, representative DNA from the fossils. Because if the DNA is closer to modern human than expected, the quality means that it's likely to be dismissed as contamination. It's quite the delicious problem.
no subject
But you might like my sister's neanderthal hypothesis. She studied anthropology, and apparently every individual physical characteristic of neanderthals can occasionally be found in modern humans, and some of the characteristics have a gradient going northwards in Europe. So her idea is that not only is there neanderthal DNA in modern humans, but that neanderthals are actually the source of the blue-eyed and blonde characteristics.
The problem isn't so much getting DNA from moderns (although this is good) but getting enough, representative DNA from the fossils. Because if the DNA is closer to modern human than expected, the quality means that it's likely to be dismissed as contamination. It's quite the delicious problem.