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I makes me wonder how many mythical humanoids are remnants of our collective memory of these other humans: giants, dwarves, elves, trolls. Could troglodytes be Neanderthals?

Similarly Dragons could be the result of ancient man finding dinosaur bones and extrapolating what the creature must look like (a creature with bones made of stone could surely breath fire).



There's also various disorders that produce dwarfism and giantism and other forms that might have looked like mythical creatures before medical science knew about these things.

Also, I like the mythical cyclops could have been from dwarf elephant skulls theory: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/cyclops02.htm


And hobbits! The BBC article Homo Floresiensis. From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis )

Homo floresiensis ("Flores Man", nicknamed "hobbit") is a possible species, now extinct, in the genus Homo


They were my elves. They lived in the woods after all :)




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