ARCHEOLOGIA RESTO DEL CARLINO 27/10/04
FLORES MAN
It sounds too incredible to be true, but this is not a hoax. A
species of tiny human has been discovered, which lived on the
remote Indonesian island of Flores just 18,000 years ago.
Researchers have so far unearthed remains from eight individuals
who were just one metre tall, with grapefruit-sized skulls. These
astonishing little people, nicknamed 'hobbits', made tools, hunted
tiny elephants and lived at the same time as modern humans who were
colonizing the [email protected] tells the story of a find that
changes the world of palaeoanthropology, and challenges our
perception of what it means to be human.
Nature 431, 1055 - 1061 (28 October 2004);
doi:10.1038/nature02999
A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores,
IndonesiaP.BROWN1, T.SUTIKNA2, M.J.MORWOOD1, R.P.SOEJONO2,
JATMIKO2, E.WAYHUSAPTOMO2 & ROKUSAWEDUE21Archaeology &
Palaeoanthropology, School of Human & Environmental Studies,
University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales 2351,
Australia2Indonesian Centre for Archaeology, Jl. Raya Condet
Pejaten No. 4, Jakarta 12001, IndonesiaCorrespondence and requests
for materials should be addressed to P.B.
([email protected]).Currently, it is widely accepted that
only one hominin genus, Homo, was present in Pleistocene Asia,
represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Both
species are characterized by greater brain size, increased body
height and smaller teeth relative to Pliocene Australopithecus in
Africa. Here we report the discovery, from the Late Pleistocene of
Flores, Indonesia, of an adult hominin with stature and endocranial
volume approximating 1m and 380cm3, respectivelyequal to the
smallest-known australopithecines. The combination of primitive and
derived features assigns this hominin to a new species, Homo
floresiensis. The most likely explanation for its existence on
Flores is long-term isolation, with subsequent endemic dwarfing, of
an ancestral H. erectus population. Importantly, H. floresiensis
shows that the genus Homo is morphologically more varied and
flexible in its adaptive responses than previously thought.
Nature 431, 1087 - 1091 (28 October 2004);
doi:10.1038/nature02956
Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern
IndonesiaM.J.MORWOOD1, R.P.SOEJONO2, R.G.ROBERTS3, T.SUTIKNA2,
C.S.M.TURNEY3, K.E.WESTAWAY3, W.J.RINK4, J.-X.ZHAO5,
G.D.VANDENBERGH6, ROKUSAWEDUE2, D.R.HOBBS1, M.W.MOORE1, M.I.BIRD7
& L.K.FIFIELD81Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, School of
Human and Environmental Studies, University of New England,
Armidale, New South Wales 2351, Australia2Indonesian Centre for
Archaeology, Jl. Raya Condet Pejaten No. 4, Jakarta 12001,
Indonesia3GeoQuEST Research Centre, School of Earth and
Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New
South Wales 2522, Australia4School of Geography and Geology,
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada5Advanced
Centre for Queensland University Isotope Research Excellence
(ACQUIRE), University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072,
Australia6Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, 1790 AB Den
Burg, Texel, The Netherlands7School of Geography and Geosciences,
University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL, UK8Research
School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Australian National
University, Canberra, ACT 0200, AustraliaCorrespondence and
requests for materials should be addressed to M.J.M.
([email protected]) and R.G.R.
([email protected]).Excavations at Liang Bua, a large limestone cave
on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia, have yielded evidence
for a population of tiny hominins, sufficiently distinct
anatomically to be assigned to a new species, Homo floresiensis.
The finds comprise the cranial and some post-cranial remains of one
individual, as well as a premolar from another individual in older
deposits. Here we describe their context, implications and the
remaining archaeological uncertainties. Dating by radiocarbon
(14C), luminescence, uranium-series and electron spin resonance
(ESR) methods indicates that H. floresiensis existed from before
38,000 years ago (kyr) until at least 18kyr. Associated deposits
contain stone artefacts and animal remains, including Komodo dragon
and an endemic, dwarfed species of Stegodon. H. floresiensis
originated from an early dispersal of Homo erectus (including
specimens referred to as Homo ergaster and Homo georgicus) that
reached Flores, and then survived on this island refuge until
relatively recently. It overlapped significantly in time with Homo
sapiens in the region, but we do not know if or how the two species
interacted.
NaturePublished online: 27October2004; | doi:10.1038/4311029a -
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041025/full/4311029a.htmlLittle
lady of Flores forces rethink of human evolution
Rex Dalton
Dwarf hominid lived in Indonesia just 18,000 years ago.
INCLUDEPICTURE
"http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041025/images/special.jpg" \*
MERGEFORMATINET
This article is part of an interactive special report. Click
here for full coverage.
A new human-like species - a dwarfed relative who lived just
18,000 years ago in the company of pygmy elephants and giant
lizards - has been discovered in Indonesia.
Skeletal remains show that the hominins, nicknamed 'hobbits' by
some of their discoverers, were only one metre tall, had a brain
one-third the size of that of modern humans, and lived on an
isolated island long after Homo sapiens had migrated through the
South Pacific region.
"My jaw dropped to my knees," says Peter Brown, one of the lead
authors and a palaeoanthropologist at the University of New England
in Armidale, Australia.
The find has excited researchers with its implications - if
unexpected branches of humanity are still being found today, and
lived so recently, then who knows what else might be out there? The
species' diminutive stature indicates that humans are subject to
the same evolutionary forces that made other mammals shrink to
dwarf size when in genetic isolation and under ecological pressure,
such as on an island with limited resources.
The find has been classed as a new species - Homo
floresiensis.
P. Brown
The new species, reported this week in Nature1,2, was found by
Australian and Indonesian scientists in a rock shelter called Liang
Bua on the island of Flores. The team unearthed a near-complete
skeleton, thought to be a female, including the skull, jaw and most
teeth, along with bones and teeth from at least seven other
individuals. In the same site they also found bones from Komodo
dragons and an extinct pygmy elephant called Stegodon.
The hominin bones were not fossilized, but in a condition the
team described as being like "mashed potatoes", a result of their
age and the damp conditions. "The skeleton had the consistency of
wet blotting paper, so a less experienced excavator might have
trashed the find," says Richard Roberts of the University of
Wollongong, Australia.
"Only the Indonesians were present at the actual moment of
discovery - the Australian contingent had departed back to Oz,"
says Roberts. He credits Thomas Sutikna of the Indonesian Centre
for Archaeology in Jakarta for the excellent handling of the
samples. The success has inspired national pride at the centre, the
researchers say. "This is very important for Indonesian society,"
says co-author R. P. Soejono.
The discovery is prompting increased scrutiny of sites on other
Southeast Asian islands, both to look for more of the same species
and to place it in context with Homo sapiens and Homo erectus, our
closest relative. Homo erectus was found to have lived on the
nearby island of Java as long as 1.6 million years ago; the team
suggests that the Flores hominins may be their descendants.
Peter Brown photographs his find.
P. Brown
Dating more bones could help determine whether the species was a
short-lived branch of human evolution or survived for longer.
Preliminary dating places it at about 70,000 years ago, but it may
extend back 800,000 years. "We were hoping we might find a little
hominin from that early," says author Michael Morwood, an
archaeologist at the University of New England.
In the meantime, researchers are hoping to find DNA in the
bones, which would help to clarify the relationships between
species. DNA has previously been extracted from European
Neanderthals living in the same time period. But they have so far
failed to find DNA in the teeth of the Stegodon found in the same
cave, says Brown.
FLASHMAP:
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/flores/flash/map11.htmlPublished
online: 27October2004; | doi:10.1038/news041025-3 A stranger from
Flores
Chris Stringer
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041025/full/041025-3.html
The skull of Homo floresiensis is tiny compared to modern day
Homo sapiens.
This skull almost certainly belonged to a woman, who lived
18,000 years ago.
P. Brown P. Brown
When a new fossil is found it is often claimed that it will
rewrite the anthropological textbooks. But in the case of an
astonishing new discovery from Indonesia, this claim is fully
justified.
The conventional view of early human evolution is that the
species Homo erectus was our first relative to spread out of
Africa, some 2 million years ago. The spread that our cousin
achieved is indicated by a 1.8-million-year-old, primitive form of
H. erectus found at Dmanisi in Georgia, and by finds at slightly
younger sites in China and the Indonesian island of Java. It was
not thought that H. erectus travelled any farther towards Australia
than this, because although early humans could have walked to Java
from Southeast Asia at times of low sea level, the islands east of
Java, always separated from it by deep water, seemed beyond their
reach.
However, six years ago a team of archaeologists, led by
Australian Mike Morwood, published a paper claiming that a site on
the island of Flores, 500 kilometres east of Java, contained stone
tools dating from about 800,000 years ago1. Many researchers
(myself included) doubted these claims, because if they were true
they implied that H. erectus had moved beyond Java and might have
used boats to do so. Such a development was thought to be unique to
Homo sapiens.
When I then heard rumours about the discovery of an early human
skeleton in a cave on Flores, I was ready to be surprised. However,
nothing could have prepared me for how big (or small) that surprise
would be.
Asian fusion
The skeleton found at Liang Bua, a cave on Flores, is of an
adult who was only about one metre tall with a brain size of only
380 cubic centimetres. That is less than one-third of the average
brain size for a modern human and much smaller even than those of
the primitive H. erectus skulls from Dmanisi.The Flores skull shows
a unique mixture of primitive and advanced characteristics. The
brain is the same size as a chimpanzee's, the brain-case is low
with a prominent brow ridge at the front, and the lower jaw
completely lacks a chin. However, as in modern humans, the face is
small and delicate. It is tucked under the brain rather than thrust
out in front and the teeth are similar in size to our own. The
skeleton shows a similarly strange mixture of features. The
hip-bone resembles those of the pre-human African species known as
australopithecines (meaning 'southern apes'). But the legs are
slight, and enough detail has been preserved to show that this
creature definitely walked on two legs, as we do.
Class act
So what was this strange creature, and what was it doing on
Flores? The authors of the two Nature papers2,3 about the discovery
and its context have had to make difficult choices in deciding how
to classify the creature, although it is clear that this person was
definitely not a modern human. The small brain size and the
hip-bone shape might favour classification as an australopithecine,
whereas the size and shape of the skull might suggest a primitive
form of H. erectus.Given the unique combination of features, the
authors have decided to give the specimen a new name: Homo
floresiensis. This means, literally, 'man of Flores', although the
authors recognize that the Liang Bua skeleton is probably that of a
woman.The researchers argue that this species made the tools found
in the Liang Bua cave, and may have preyed on one of the few other
mammals that had also managed to reach Flores: a tiny form of the
extinct, elephant-like Stegodon.
Of a certain ageIt seems that Flores man (or woman) still has
one more surprise up its sleeve: its age. Astonishingly, two
methods of dating agree in placing the skeleton at only about
18,000 years old. Its ancestors, probably a form of H. erectus,
could have reached the island in the hunt for stegodons a million
years ago, either by building some kind of boat or by walking
across a short-lived land-bridge.
Their resulting isolation and inbreeding may have led them to
evolve a small body size, in a process known from other mammals as
'island dwarfing'. Because of climate change or the impact of
modern humans, who began to spread from Africa around 100,000 years
ago, the strange story of H. floresiensis eventually ended in
extinction. But modern humans must surely have encountered this
tiny relative of ours, and the discovery shows how much we still
have to learn about the story of human evolution.
Chris Stringer is a palaeontologist at the Natural History
Museum in London.
Published online: 27October2004; | -
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041025/pf/041025-4_pf.htmlThe
Flores find
Michael Hopkin
Interview: For the archaeologists who unearthed and studied the
Flores skeleton, the discovery is a potentially career-defining
event. So how did they greet the find, and has it changed their
ideas about human evolution? [email protected] asked Peter Brown, who
led the analysis, and Mike Morwood, who directed the dig, for their
reflections.
What was your initial reaction to the finding?
Peter Brown led the analysis of the remains found at Liang
Bua.
P. Brown
Peter Brown: In early September 2003 Mike Morwood brought the
cast of a tooth to my laboratory. It had been recovered from the
excavations at Liang Bua. I realized that while it was broadly
human it could not have been from a modern human, so it was
exciting. More exciting was when Mike announced that the continuing
excavations had uncovered a fairly complete skeleton. We quickly
arranged to go to Jakarta.
Mike Morwood: The feeling was one of tremendous excitment. We
had previously recovered a few very unusual hominid bones and teeth
from the Pleistocene levels of Liang Bua, but now we had a major
part of a skeleton, including the skull.
How quickly did you realize its importance?
MM: We knew straight away that the finding was important, but
because of the size of the skull we initially thought that the
individual was a young child. This view changed when [team member]
Rokus Awe Due examined the teeth, which were very worn. Later
detailed forensic analysis by Peter Brown indicated that she was an
adult female aged about 30.
PB: Within a second of seeing the skull and mandible I realized
it was important. Mike and Thomas Sutikna (the archaeologist
primarily responsible for the day-to-day running of the excavation)
report that when I measured the skull's approximate brain size I
was clearly in shock. I knew this was the skeleton of a biped, but
it had the brain size of a chimpanzee and was alive perhaps as
recently as 14,000 years ago. It seemed impossible. Still does!
What had you been hoping to find when you began the dig?
MM: We were hoping to find evidence for the initial arrival of
modern humans on the island, and possibly the preceding hominid
species - sites further east in the Soa Basin of central Flores had
previously shown that hominids were on the island by 840,000 years
ago.
So was Homo floresiensis completely out of the blue?
The team excavating at Liang Bua.
M. Morwood
PB: Yes. The only other hominins of this body and brain size
date to the Pleiocene epoch [between 13 million and 2 million years
ago] in Africa. However, they have very different facial skeletons
and teeth to H. floresiensis (smaller teeth and a less projecting
face). There are also no other examples of hominins dwarfing in the
way that some other mammals often do on islands. We're still not
certain that H. floresiensis dwarfed on Flores, as no larger-bodied
ancestor has been found.
Who made the actual discovery?
PB: The discovery was made by the archaeological team directed
by Mike and R. P. Soejono [of the Indonesian Centre for Archaeology
in Jakarta]. At the time the excavation was being led by Thomas
Sutikna, who also did a lot of the initial cleaning and
conservation of the skeleton. My role was primarily in cleaning,
reconstructing and conserving the skull and some other skeletal
elements, and then recording and describing the skeleton.
MM: The team was assisted by 35 local manggarai workers. Other
researchers dated the finds, and analysed the associated faunal
remains and stone artefacts. In fact, the input of specialists from
many institutions and disciplines has been crucial to the success
of our research.
What's next for human palaeontology? Given its habit of throwing
up surprises, is that a silly question?
PB: Until the discovery at Liang Bua the broad pattern of human
palaeontology was starting to look predictable - not such a bad
thing for those of us who teach the subject. After this discovery,
and perhaps an increased focus on island Southeast Asia, I predict
a few major surprises ahead. Researchers will start to look a lot
more closely at the isolated teeth and jaw fragments recovered from
cave deposits on the Asian mainland. Some of these, previously
thought to be the remains of a small ape, may turn out to be
something else.
Mike Morwood directed the dig at Liang Bua.
M. Morwood
MM: My own feeling is that future archaeological discoveries in
Southeast Asia will show that human dispersal and cultural change
were much more complex than previously believed, and that Asia may
have played a much more prominent role in these issues than
adherents of the simplistic 'Out of Africa' explanation for
everything would have us believe.
Does this change your own feelings about the uniqueness and
modernity of Homo sapiens?
PB: Yes and no. Although it was a member of our genus, H.
floresiensis is unlikely to have contributed to the gene pool of H.
sapiens. So for me, its importance is not in the evolutionary story
of modern humans, but in how the broad group from which modern
humans evolved may have adapted and evolved to different
ecosystems. Prior to this finding it would not have been thought
that a hominin with the brain size, and possibly limited cognitive
ability, of H. floresiensis could make the type of tools associated
with the skeleton, or even get to Flores at all. I suppose that
this is what challenges existing notions of what it is to be human
the most.
[email protected]:Flores, God and Cryptozoology -
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041025/pf/041025-2_pf.htmlHenry
Gee
The discovery of Homo floresiensis raises hopes for yeti hunters
and, says Henry Gee, poses thorny questions about the uniqueness of
Homo sapiens.
When the first human colonists arrived on the island of Flores
in eastern Indonesia a few thousand years ago, they had no idea
that they were treading on the remains of a lost world.
Until around 12,000 years ago, when a volcanic eruption seems to
have ended the party, Flores was a looking-glass garden of Komodo
dragons and even larger lizards, giant tortoises and enormous rats.
Alongside them were tiny, primitive elephants and, as we now know,
tiny, primitive people1,2.
Probably descended from full-sized Homo erectus that made
landfall on Flores as much as 900,000 years ago3, the islanders
dodged the dragons and hunted the elephants. Killers and quarry
became smaller with each generation, instances of the well-known
phenomenon of endemic dwarfing in small, inbred island populations,
until they were transformed into new species. Homo erectus became
Homo floresiensis.
These people, each a metre tall as an adult, lived on Flores
from at least 38,000 years ago to 18,000 years ago2. But
fossilization is a chancy business, so it is likely that they were
there long before that interval... and long after it. They may have
been alive when modern Homo sapiens arrived in the region. Yet as
far as we know, Homo floresiensis survived for thousands of years,
unnoticed and unmolested by humans, before becoming extinct.
Florid tales
The discovery that Homo floresiensis survived until so very
recently, in geological terms, makes it more likely that stories of
other mythical, human-like creatures such as yetis are founded on
grains of truth.In the light of the Flores skeleton, a recent
initiative4 to scour central Sumatra for 'orang pendek' can be
viewed in a more serious light. This small, hairy, manlike creature
has hitherto been known only from Malay folklore, a debatable
strand of hair and a footprint. Now, cryptozoology, the study of
such fabulous creatures, can come in from the cold.Another argument
in favour of such searches comes from the recent discovery of
several new species of large mammal, notably in Southeast Asia.
Easy to miss: Pseudoryx nghetinhensis was only discovered in
1992.
Source: Nature
For example, Pseudoryx nghetinhensis5, a species of ox from the
remote Vu Qiang nature reserve on the border between Vietnam and
Laos, was first described from hunting trophies in only 1992.
Another species of bovid, the kouprey (Bos sauveli), was discovered
in Indochina in 1937.Neither of these creatures is as exotic as a
yeti or orang pendek, but the point is made. If animals as large as
oxen can remain hidden into an era when we would expect that
scientists had rustled every tree and bush in search of new forms
of life, there is no reason why the same should not apply to new
species of large primate, including members of the human
family.
Cryptic clues
The discoverers of Homo floresiensis suggest that their find
could be the first of many, and that other species of recently
extinct humans might be discovered on other isolated islands.But
whether other recently extinct (or extant) hominid species are
found or not, the fact that even one distinct species of human was
found to have lived alongside modern man not only enriches our
understanding of recent human diversity; it could change our view
of ourselves in a fundamental way.As far as we know, Homo sapiens
is the only species of human that yet lives on the planet. It is
very easy to take this solitary estate (and our consequent
separateness from the rest of the animal world) for granted, so
much has it become ingrained in our philosophy, ethics and
religion, even our science.Until very recently, evolutionary
thought was couched in terms of a linear, progressive trajectory
rising from lower life forms and culminating in man. I have argued
elsewhere that this view is not, regrettably, as extinct as it
should be6.In palaeoanthropology, this idea is seen in the view
that only one species of hominid has existed at any one time, each
one succeeding the next in a scheme of orderly replacement. This
idea began to crumble in the 1970s7, since when discoveries of
ancient relatives of humans have revealed a marked diversity of
form. Human evolution is like a bush, not a ladder8.But these
discoveries concerned the more remote reaches of human ancestry.
Despite the fact that some of our relatives, such as Neanderthal
man and Homo erectus, are thought to have become extinct in
relatively recent times9, our complacency that this view holds for
recent history has not been shaken.Until now. If it turns out that
the diversity of human beings was always high, remained high until
very recently and might not be entirely extinguished, we are
entitled to question the security of some of our deepest beliefs.
Will the real image of God please stand up?
References
1. Brown P., et al. Nature, 431. 1055 - 1061
(2004).|Article|
2. Morwood M. J., et al. Nature, 431. 1087 -
1091(2004).|Article|
3. Morwood M. J., et al. Nature, 392. 173 - 176
(1998).|Article|ISI|ChemPort|
4. Green D., Tracking down the 'jungle yeti'
5. Dung V. V., et al. Nature, 363. 443 - 445
(1993).|Article|ISI|
6. Gee H., et al. Nature, 420. 611
(2002).|Article|PubMed|ISI|ChemPort|
7. Leakey R. E. F. & Walker C. Nature, 261. 572 - 574
(1976).|PubMed|ISI|ChemPort|
8. Wood B., et al. Nature, 418. 133 - 135
(2002).|Article|PubMed|ISI|ChemPort|
9. Swisher III C. C., et al. Science, 274. 1870 - 1874
(1996).|Article|PubMed|
Fascinating prehistoric dwarf skeleton found
Associated Press 27/10/04 -
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1098913191219_94322391/?hub=TopStories
In an astonishing discovery that could rewrite the history of
human evolution, scientists say they have found the skeleton of a
new human species, a dwarf, marooned for eons in a tropical Lost
World while modern man rapidly colonized the rest of the
planet.
The finding on a remote Indonesian island has stunned
anthropologists like no other in recent memory. It is a
fundamentally new creature that bears more of a resemblance to
fictional, barefooted hobbits than modern humans.
Yet biologically speaking, it may have been closely related to
us and perhaps even shared its caves with our ancestors.
The 3-foot-tall adult female skeleton found in a cave is
believed 18,000 years old. It smashes the long-cherished scientific
belief that our species, Homo sapiens, systematically crowded out
other upright-walking human cousins beginning 160,000 years ago and
that we've had Earth to ourselves for tens of thousands of
years.
Instead, it suggests recent evolution was more complex than
previously thought.
And it demonstrates that Africa, the acknowledged cradle of
humanity, does not hold all the answers to persistent questions of
how and where we came to be.
"This finding really does rewrite our knowledge of human
evolution," said Chris Stringer, who directs human origins studies
at the Natural History Museum in London. "And to have them present
less than 20,000 years ago is frankly astonishing."
Scientists called the dwarf skeleton "the most extreme" figure
to be included in the extended human family. Certainly, she is the
shortest.
She is the best example of a trove of fragmented bones that
account for as many as seven of these primitive individuals that
lived on the equatorial island of Flores, located east of Java and
northwest of Australia. The mostly intact female skeleton was found
in September 2003.
Scientists have named the extinct species Homo floresiensis, or
Flores Man, and details appear in Thursday's issue of the journal
Nature.
The specimens' ages range from 95,000 to 12,000 years old,
meaning they lived until the threshold of recorded human history
and perhaps crossed paths with the ancestors of today's
islanders.
Flores Man was hardly formidable. His grapefruit-sized brain was
two-thirds smaller than ours, and closer to the brains of today's
chimpanzees and transitional prehuman species in Africa than
vanished 2 million years ago.
Yet Flores Man made stone tools, lit fires and organized group
hunts for meat. Bones of fish, birds and rodents found near the
skeleton were charred, suggesting they were cooked.
All this suggests Flores Man lived communally and communicated
effectively, perhaps even verbally.
"It is arguably the most significant discovery concerning our
own genus in my lifetime," said anthropologist Bernard Wood of
George Washington University, who reviewed the research
independently.
Discoveries simply "don't get any better than that," proclaimed
Robert Foley and Marta Mirazon Lahr of Cambridge University in a
written analysis.
To others, the species' baffling combination of slight
dimensions and coarse features bears almost no meaningful
comparison either to modern humans or to our larger, archaic
cousins.
They suggest that Flores Man doesn't belong in the genus Homo at
all, even if it was a recent contemporary. But they are unsure
where to classify it.
"I don't think anybody can pigeonhole this into the very
simple-minded theories of what is human," anthropologist Jeffrey
Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh. "There is no biological
reason to call it Homo. We have to rethink what it is."
For now, most researchers have been limited to examining digital
photographs of the specimens. The female partial skeleton and other
fragments are stored in a laboratory in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Researchers from Australia and Indonesia found the partial
skeleton 13 months ago in a shallow limestone cave known as Liang
Bua. The cave, which extends into a hillside for about 130 feet,
has been the subject of scientific analysis since 1964. Fenced off
and patrolled by guards, it is surrounded by coffee farms.
Older stone tools and other artifacts previously found on the
island suggest that Flores Man is part of a substantial archaic
human lineage.
"So the 18,000-year-old skeleton cannot be some kind of 'freak'
that we just happened to stumble across," said one of the
discoverers, radiocarbon dating expert Richard G. Roberts of the
University of Wollongong in Australia.
But the environment in which Flores Man lived was indeed
peculiar, and scientists say it probably contributed to the
specimen's unusually small dimensions.
Millenia ago, Flores was a kind of a looking-glass world, a
real-life Middle-earth inhabited by a menagerie of fantastical
creatures like giant tortoises, elephants as small as ponies and
rats as big as hunting dogs.
It even had a dragon, although they were giant lizards like
today's carnivorous Komodo dragons rather than the
treasure-hoarding Smaug described by novelist J.R.R. Tolkien in his
"Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
Artifacts suggest that a big-boned human cousin, Homo erectus,
migrated from Java to Flores and other islands, perhaps by bamboo
raft, nearly 1 million years ago.
Researchers suspect that Flores Man probably is an H. erectus
descendant that was squeezed by the pressures of natural
selection.
Nature is full of mammals deer, squirrels and pigs, for example
living in marginal, isolated environments that gradually dwarf when
food isn't plentiful and predators aren't threatening.
This is the first time that the evolution of dwarfism has been
recorded in a human relative, said the study's lead author, Peter
Brown of the University of New England in Australia.
Just how this primitive, remnant species managed to hang on is
uncertain. Inbreeding certainly would've been a danger. Geologic
evidence suggests a massive volcanic eruption sealed its fate some
12,000 years ago, along with other unusual island species like the
dwarf elephant species, stegodon.
Now, scientists are more puzzled by the specimen's jumble of
features that appear to be borrowed from different human
ancestors.
This much is clear: Its worn teeth and fused skull show it was
an adult. The shape of the pelvis is female. The skull is wide like
H. erectus. But the sides are rounder and the crown traces an arc
from ear to ear. The skull of H. erectus has straight sides and a
pointed crown, they said.
The lower jaw contains large, blunt teeth and roots like
Australopithecus, a prehuman ancestor in Africa more than 3 million
years ago. The front teeth are smaller and more like modern human
teeth.
The eye sockets are big and round, but unlike other members of
the Homo genus, it has hardly any chin or browline.
The rest of the skeleton looks as if it walked upright, but the
pelvis and the shinbone have primitive, even apelike features.
Bones from the species' feet and hands have not yet been found.
Delicate artifacts found in the cave were described as "toy-sized"
versions of stone tools made by H. erectus. They suggest that
Flores Man retained intelligence and dexterity to flake small
weapons with sharp edges, even if its body shrunk over time.
"I've spent a sleepless night trying to figure out what to do
with this thing," said Schwartz. "It's a mind-blower. It makes me
think of nothing else in this world."
Even more speculative is whether Flores Man met with modern
humans, and what might've happened.
Folklore experts have reported persistent legends of little
people living on Flores and nearby islands. Islanders called the
creature "Ebu Gogo" and say it was about 3 feet tall.
The dimensions of the skull and skeleton of H. floresiensis fall
well outside the extremes seen in H. sapiens and the 'erectines' (a
range of hominin species, of which H. erectus is the most
familiar). It is closer in size to, but even smaller than, the
australopithecines, of which the best known example is Lucy
H. floresiensis was part of the Asian dispersals of the
descendants of H. ergaster and H. erectus.
Resto del Carlino 27/10/04
Scoperto 'nuovo' ominide - Una donna di 18000 anni fa
Londra, 27 ottobre 2004 - Era alto poco pi di un metro, aveva un
cranio dalle capacit limitate e i suoi tratti erano a met tra
quelli dei primi ominidi e i moderni Homo sapiens. Ma appartiene ad
una specie tutta nuova e particolare che visse sull'isola
indonesiana di Flores almeno fino a 18.000 anni fa.
Sono queste le caratteristiche principali del nuovo ominide
scoperto da un gruppo di ricercatori australiani e indonesiani nei
sedimenti di una caverna nei pressi della localit di Liang Bua. A
dare la notizia del ritrovamento la rivista Nature che dedica la
sua copertina al ritratto del cranio, quasi del tutto intatto di
questo nuovo membro della nostra famiglia battezzata Homo
floresiensis, dal nome dell'isola sulla quale sono venuti alla luce
i suoi resti.
Autori della scoperta sono Peter Brown, Mike Morwood e Bert
Roberts dell'Archaeology & Palaeoanthropology, School of Human
& Environmental Studies, University of New England, di Armidale
(Australia) e i loro colleghi dell'Indonesian Centre for
Archaeology. Il ritrovamento di questi resti appartenenti ad una
donna, un cranio completo di mandibola e dentatura e altre ossa tra
cui parte del bacino, la tibia e il femore, rappresenta per la
paleoantropologia un vero e proprio enigma. Come infatti indicano
sull'articolo apparso su Nature gli autori della scoperta, i tratti
di questo ominide sono a met strada tra quelli dei primi Homo
erectus, e quelle delle forme di ominidi pi moderni. Con in pi
alcune caratteristiche del tutto particolari, come la sua ridotta
statura, che potrebbe rappresentare una forma di adattamento di
questo ominide all'isolamento. Inoltre anche il luogo in cui stato
ritrovato lo scheletro, crea delle difficolt alle teorie attuali
sull'evoluzione umana. L'isola di Flores si trova infatti ad Est
della cosiddetta Linea di Wallace, la linea che segna una sorta di
barriera naturale alla migrazioni di diverse specie animali e
vegetali.
La teorie attuali indicano che la colonizzazione dell'Australia
da parte dei primi uomini sia avvenuta sfruttando le particolari
condizioni causate dall'abbassamento del livello dei mari durante
le glaciazioni. Ma anche in questo periodo, l'Australia continuava
a rimanere isolata anche da un braccio di mare largo solo una
trentina di miglia, corrispondente all'attuale canale di Lombok,
tra le isole di Lombok e quella di Bali. Solo i primi Homo sapiens,
arrivati in Australia intorno ai 45-50mila anni fa, furono in grado
di superare questo ostacolo. Ma ora il ritrovamento di floresiensis
ad Est della linea di Wallace sembra smentire questa ipotesi. Ma a
destare interesse soprattutto l'et di questi reperti. Lo scheletro,
molto fragile e non ancora fossilizzato, risale infatti ad appena
18.000 anni fa e altri resti non completi sono stati datati a un
periodo compreso tra i 95 mila e i 12 mila anni fa, quando
l'eruzione di un vulcano probabilmente port la specie
all'estinzione insieme agli elefanti pigmei che cacciava. Questo in
termini antropologici significa che praticamente fino a ieri sulla
Terra esistevano ancora ominidi diversi dal Sapiens che occupavano
delle particolari nicchie ecologiche.
Corriere della Sera 27 ottobre 2004
SCIENZE
Scoperti i resti in Indonesia: era come un hobbit - L'uomo
preistorico? Era alto soltanto un metro
E' stato battezzato uomo di Flores e rappresenta una nuova
specie. Viveva diciottomila anni fa
FLORES (INDONESIA) - Era alto circa un metro. Come gli hobbit
descritti da Tolkien ne Il signore degli anelli. Ma a differenza
dei personaggi del romanzo dell'autore britannico veramente
esistito.
NUOVA SPECIE - Diciottomila anni fa sullisola di Flores, in
Indonesia, viveva infatti un uomo primitivo, fino ad ora
sconosciuto, erede dell'Homo erectus.
Il dottor Henry Gee mostra il teschio dell'uomo di Flores
(Ansa)
Come racconta una ricerca che uscir sul prossimo numero di
Nature che uscir gioved, i resti di un antico scheletro sono stati
ritrovati nelle profondit di una caverna in localit Liang Bua, un
ritrovamento che ha destato grande sorpresa non solo per
leccezionalit del reperto, quanto per il fatto che testimonianza
della variet con la quale il genere umano si evoluto. Quando lo
scheletro stato riportato alla luce saltato subito agli occhi di
Peter Brown e dei suoi colleghi, University New England, Armidale
Australia, che si trattava di resti fossili appartenenti ad un
individuo "insolito", che sebbene adulto e ben formato, non
arrivava al metro di altezza ed aveva un cranio grande quanto un
pompelmo.
UOMO DI FLORES - Secondo gli scienziati, luomo di Flores, cos
stata chiamata la nuova specie di uomo primitivo, discende
direttamente da una forma estinta del genere Homo, nota come Homo
erectus.
Una serie di teschi: al centro quello dell'uomo di Flores
(Afp)
LHomo erectus si diffuso dallAfrica allAsia, raggiungendo
lIndonesia circa due milioni di anni fa e lo scheletro di Liang Bua
potrebbe essere il rappresentante di una popolazione di Homo
erectus, rimasta isolata sullisola di Flores qualche centinaio di
migliaia di anni fa, che si evoluta in una nuova specie, con
caratteristiche morfologiche peculiari. Le piccole dimensioni del
reperto, fanno notare gli scienziati, inquadra questa specie
definita "nana", nella bizzarra fauna, ormai estinta, di Flores.
Sembra che, su questa isola, fino a tempi relativamente recenti
abitassero, animali un po da fantascienza, del genere Mondo
perduto, come lucertole giganti o il celebre elefante nano
Stegodon. Luomo di Flores arriv sullisola, in un epoca non ancora
precisa, quando a Java vivevano popolazioni di Homo erectus e
molto, molto prima che lHomo sapiens, nuova specie emergente (la
nostra), iniziasse la colonizzazione anche di questa regione.
27 ottobre 2004 - Corriere.it anche sul tuo cellulare Tim,
Vodafone o WindTiny Human a Big Evolutionary Tale
AFP
Oct. 27, 2004 In one of the most spectacular fossil finds in
decades, anthropologists announce on Thursday they have found the
bones of a tiny human who is a twig in mankind's family tree.
The height of a chimpanzee and with a skull the size of a
grapefruit, the wee hominid lived around 18,000 years ago on the
remote eastern Indonesian island of Flores, they said.
She is believed to be an extinct Asian offshoot of Homo erectus,
the forerunners of Homo sapiens, as anatomically modern humans are
called.
But she was so dramatically different from either H. erectus or
H. sapiens that she should be classified as a separate species of
Homo, said the team report on Thursday in the British weekly
scientific journal Nature.
She measured just a meter or so (3.25 feet) high and had a brain
size of 380 cc (13 fluid ounces), just a quarter of modern human's.
They have dubbed the hominid Homo floresiensis, "Man of
Flores."
She is the smallest of the 10 known species of the genus Homo,
the hominid that arose out of Africa about 2.5 million years
ago.
Their theory, based on the previous discovery of stone tools on
Flores, is that H. erectus arrived on Flores about 800,000 years
ago and became genetically marooned from the rest of mankind.
Over thousands of years, evolutionary pressure caused the colony
to shrink in height a paucity of food and over-population favored
the survival of smaller individuals, whose genes were then passed
on to their infants.
"We interpret H. floresiensis as a relict lineage (of Homo) that
reached, and was then preserved on, a Wallacean island refuge,"
said the authors, led by Peter Brown of University New England in
Australia. "In isolation, these populations underwent protacted,
endemic change."
As the millennia passed, Homo erectus petered out in the rest of
world, to be replaced by taller hominids with bigger brains.
The most successful was H. sapiens, which strode out of Africa
about 150,000 years ago and eventually conquered the planet,
becoming the only living species of Homo today. H. sapiens migrated
across southern Asia between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago,
according to a conventional scenario.
Humans then forked northeast, crossing over into the Americas
via island stepping-stones to Alaska, and also southeast, to
colonize the Indonesian archipelago, the South Pacific, Australia
and New Zealand, according to a popular scenario.
So at some point, H. sapiens also showed up on Flores, possibly
living there for tens of thousand years alongside H.
floriensis.
The Rest of the Story What happened then is one of the big
unanswerable questions, Brown's team said.
It is impossible to know how the two species interacted. Did H.
sapiens slaughter its smaller neighbors? Or did H. floresiensis
eventually become extinct because it could no longer compete for
food against its bigger cousins?
Another question is whether the two species may have interbred,
possibly adding to the genetic mix that is H. sapiens today.
That puzzle also applies to the Neanderthals, the hominids who
lived in Europe, parts of Central Asia and the Middle East for some
170,000 years until they inexplicably disappeared around
28,000-30,000 years ago.
"The find is startling ... among the most outstanding
discoveries in palaeoanthropology for half a century," University
of Cambridge anthropologists Marta Mirazon Lahr and Robert Foley
said in a commentary, also carried in Nature.
"It is breathtaking to think that such a different species (of
hominid) existed so recently," they said. "(...) Our global
dominance may be far more recent than we thought."
The Flores discovery includes the skull, femur and tibia, hand
fragments and bits of vertebrae from one individual, apparently a
female, and a premolar from another.
They were unearthed from the floor of a cave at Liang Bua, in
the middle of western Flores, where amateur anthropologists first
started excavating in 1965.
The authors are certain that the skeleton, called LB1, is that
of a full-grown adult human, not a dwarf H. sapiens or an ape.
Islands are famous for Darwinian selection, for shaping the
genetic path of species through climate, terrain and food
availability and lack of breeding with other species. Flores was
once the home of a dwarf elephant called a Stegodon, the remains of
which were found alongside the H. floriensis fossils.
Also found there were sharp and pointed bones that may have been
tools, but it is debatable as to whether these were made by H.
floresiensis or by H. sapiens.
Repubblica.
http://www.repubblica.it/2004/j/sezioni/scienza_e_tecnologia/flores/flores/flores.html
Su 'Nature' il ritrovamento sull'isola di Flores di uno
scheletro appartenente a una donna che risale a 18mila anni faNuova
specie di ominide scoperta in IndonesiaAlto poco pi di un metro,
cranio dalle capacit limitate, tratti a met tra quelli dei primi
ominidi e il moderno Homo sapiens
LONDRA - Alto poco pi di un metro, un cranio dalle capacit
limitate, tratti a met tra quelli dei primi ominidi e il moderno
Homo sapiens. E' la specie tutta nuova che visse sull'isola
indonesiana di Flores almeno fino a 18.000 anni fa e che stata
scoperta da un gruppo di ricercatori australiani e indonesiani nei
sedimenti di una caverna nei pressi della localit di Liang Bua. A
dare la notizia del ritrovamento la rivista Nature che dedica la
sua copertina al ritratto del cranio, quasi del tutto intatto di
questo nuovo membro della nostra famiglia battezzata Homo
floresiensis, dal nome dell'isola sulla quale sono venuti alla luce
i suoi resti.
Autori della scoperta sono Peter Brown, Mike Morwood e Bert
Roberts dell'Archaeology & Palaeoanthropology, School of Human
& Environmental Studies, University of New England, di Armidale
(Australia) e i loro colleghi dell'Indonesian Centre for
Archaeology.
Il ritrovamento di questi resti appartenenti ad una donna, un
cranio completo di mandibola e dentatura e altre ossa tra cui parte
del bacino, la tibia e il femore, rappresenta per la
paleoantropologia un vero e proprio enigma. Come infatti indicano
sull'articolo apparso su Nature gli autori della scoperta, i tratti
di questo ominide sono a met strada tra quelli dei primi Homo
erectus, e quelle delle forme di ominidi pi moderni. Con in pi
alcune caratteristiche del tutto particolari, come la sua ridotta
statura, che potrebbe rappresentare una forma di adattamento di
questo ominide all'isolamento.
Anche il luogo in cui stato ritrovato lo scheletro, crea delle
difficolt alle teorie attuali sull'evoluzione umana. L'isola di
Flores si trova infatti ad Est della cosiddetta Linea di Wallace,
la linea che segna una sorta di barriera naturale alla migrazioni
di diverse specie animali e vegetali. La teorie attuali indicano
che la colonizzazione dell'Australia da parte dei primi uomini sia
avvenuta sfruttando le particolari condizioni causate
dall'abbassamento del livello dei mari durante le glaciazioni.
Ma anche in questo periodo, l'Australia continuava a rimanere
isolata anche da un braccio di mare largo solo una trentina di
miglia, corrispondente all'attuale canale di Lombok, tra le isole
di Lombok e quella di Bali. Solo i primi Homo sapiens, arrivati in
Australia intorno ai 45-50mila anni fa, furono in grado di superare
questo ostacolo. Ma ora il ritrovamento di Floresiensis ad Est
della linea di Wallace sembra smentire questa ipotesi.
Ma a destare interesse soprattutto l'et di questi reperti. Lo
scheletro, molto fragile e non ancora fossilizzato, risale infatti
ad appena 18.000 anni fa e altri resti non completi sono stati
datati a un periodo compreso tra i 95 mila e i 12 mila anni fa,
quando l'eruzione di un vulcano probabilmente port la specie
all'estinzione insieme agli elefanti pigmei che cacciava. Questo in
termini antropologici significa che praticamente fino a ieri sulla
Terra esistevano ancora ominidi diversi dal Sapiens che occupavano
delle particolari nicchie ecologiche. (27 ottobre 2004)
SCIENCE NEWS October 27, 2004
Mini Human Species Unearthed
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000B7CEA-EA31-117E-AA3183414B7F0000
Image: PETER BROWN
HOMO FLORESIENSIS (left) and H. sapiens (right)
More on this story from Scientific American.com: Digging Deeper:
Q&A with "Flores man" discoverer Peter Brown
From Nature: Flores Man
In what is being hailed as one of the most spectacular
paleoanthropological finds of the past century, researchers have
unearthed the remains of a dwarf human species that survived on the
Indonesian island of Flores until just 13,000 years ago. The
discovery significantly extends the known range of physical
variation in our genus, Homo, and reveals that H. sapiens shared
the planet with other humans much more recently than previously
believed.
Scientists writing today in Nature describe a partial skeleton
from a limestone cave on the island known as Liang Bua. Dubbed LB1,
the specimen appears to have belonged to an adult female who stood
barely a meter tall and had a skull the size of a grapefruit--the
smallest member of the human family yet. Although closer in overall
size to the much older australopithecines, such as Lucy, the new
hominid apparently resembles members of the genus Homo in features
related to chewing and upright-walking. Discoverers Peter Brown of
the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, and his
colleagues assign LB1 to a new species of Homo, H. floresiensis.
They further propose that it was a dwarfed descendant of H.
erectus, which is thought to have arrived in Southeast Asia by
around 1.7 million years ago.
Dwarfing is well known to occur in island-dwelling mammals
larger than rabbits, presumably because islands tend to have
limited food supplies. Indeed, H. floresiensis wasn't the only
miniature on Flores: pint-size bones of an elephant relative known
as Stegodon have turned up at Liang Bua as well. Islands can also
breed giants, however, and Liang Bua has yielded evidence of these
as well, including Komodo dragons and very large rodents.
Just as astonishing as H. floresiensis's small size are the
tools it is said to have used. In a second report in Nature,
Michael Moorwood, also at the University of New England, and his
collaborators describe stone artifacts found in association with
the hominid remains. Most are simple flake tools, but the
researchers also found points, perforators, blades and microblades
that they say were most likely hafted as barbs. These more advanced
tools--comparable in their complexity to those known to have been
crafted by H. sapiens--turned up amidst baby Stegodon bones,
suggesting to the team that this tiny human was hunting tiny
elephants.
An isolated arm bone found deeper in the Liang Bua deposit, as
well as the remains of several other individuals recovered more
recently, indicate that H. floresiensis had a long history on the
island, and was present there 95,000 years ago. This bantam human
therefore significantly overlapped in time with Homo sapiens, who
arrived in the region sometime between 55,000 and 35,000 years ago.
How they interacted, however--if they ever even met face to
face--remains a mystery.
Future work, team members say, will focus on trying to find
large-bodied ancestors of H. floresiensis on Flores. They also plan
to investigate other Indonesian islands, such as Java and Sulawesi.
"Perhaps the far-flung Indonesian islands have acted as a series of
independent 'Noah's Arks,' each with their own trademark endemic
dwarfs and giants," comments team member Bert Roberts of the
University of Wollongong in New South Wales. "In this regard, no
amount of navel-gazing and hypothesizing can substitute for dogged
field work, because only by excavating deposits will surprises such
as Flores man be brought to light." --Kate Wong
ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=198867
Scientists Find Ancient Hobbit-Sized People
Skeletal Remains Reveal Human Species That Measured 3-Feet
High
By AMANDA ONION
Oct. 27, 2004 - Once upon a time, on an isolated island of
Indonesia, there lived a colony of little people -- very little
people.
Not only did anthropologists find the skeletal remains of a
hobbit-sized, 30-year-old adult female, in this fairy-tale-like
discovery they also uncovered in the same limestone cave the
remains of a Komodo dragon, stone tools and a dwarf elephant.
Subsequent finds of other similarly sized, 3-foot-tall humans
with brains the size of grapefruits in a cave on the Indonesian
island of Flores suggest these 18,000-year-old specimens weren't a
quirk of an ancient hominin, but part of an entire species of
miniature people whose existence overlapped with that of modern
Homo sapiens.
"We now have the remains of at least seven hobbit-sized
individuals at the cave site, so the 18,000-year-old skeleton
cannot be some kind of 'freak' that we just happened to stumble
across first," said Bert Roberts, an anthropologist at the
University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia, and
co-author of the study about the find in this week's issue of the
journal "Nature."
Peter Brown, lead researcher of the study and an anthropologist
at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, says that
although modern humans had reached Australia by 45,000 years ago,
so far there's no evidence suggesting the small species of human
and modern humans ever met.
Still, another author, Mike Morwood, also of the University of
New England, says because the two existed in the same general
region for nearly 30,000 years, "It is certain that they came face
to face on occasion."
Island Adaptation
Although the odd little humans likely left no descendants, and
therefore no mark on modern human biology, the scientists say this
is the first documentation of the entirely new species of hominins
that apparently adapted and lived for thousands of years in caves
on the isolated island. As for their size, their limited habitat
and its hot, humid conditions may have been key factors.
Brown and the other authors suggest that the newly found
species, named Homo floresiensis, arrived on the island of Flores,
in Indonesia's Nusa Tenggara region, in the form of Homo erectus,
the first large-brained hominin that emerged some 2 million years
ago in Africa and Asia.
Morwood has argued that Homo erectus reached the island by
building some kind of water vessel since Flores was likely never
connected to the mainland by a land bar. No evidence of a
prehistoric boat has been found on the island, however, and many
scientists remain skeptical that primitive man could manage the
feat. But besides swimming (which is unlikely), the only other
known possibility would be rafting -- catching a ride on a
micro-island that had broken off a mainland. And anthropologists
say this probably would not have worked for a large creature like
Homo erectus.
"It's hard to imagine humans being rafted in that way," said
Rick Potts, curator of the Institute of Human Origins at the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington. "The idea of how they got
there is still very much in the air."
However Homo erectus got to the island, once it arrived, Brown
suggests its generations began to shrink in size. Fossils show that
Homo erectus was fairly tall, standing, on average, 5 feet 10
inches. On Flores, due to the limited resources on the
31-square-mile island, smaller versions of the hominin may have
survived best, since they would have required less food to survive.
This could have led to the evolution of the new, miniature
species.
Hot and humid weather on the island could also have favored
smaller bodies in the same way it may have led to the small size of
Pygmy populations who live in tropical forests of Africa. The
theory is since the surface area of a small body is greater in
relation to its volume, it's easier to cool off. Plus, less energy
is needed to move a small person's body weight, so less heat is
generated.
Similar factors were probably also at play to favor the
pint-sized Stegodon, whose remains were found in the same cave as
the tiny person. Evidence suggests the dwarfed people may have
hunted the miniature elephant-like creatures in groups. The authors
point to an array of stone tools, also found in the cave, which
were likely used in the hunt and to butcher prey. Remains of a
Komodo dragon, an oversized lizard that still roams the island
today, were also found in the cave, along with charred bones of
birds, rats and fish suggesting they may have been cooked and eaten
by the small humans.
Tiny Brains
More puzzling than their body size, however, is the apparently
puny size of the early humans' brains. Today, the average human
brain measures between 1,400 and 1,500 cubic centimeters. Homo
erectus had a skull that packed a brain about two-thirds the size
of today's human brains, or about 800-1,000 cubic centimeters. The
skull found on Flores suggests these small humans operated with a
brain only 380 cubic centimeters in size -- the smallest known
brain of any known hominin species.
Despite their brains' diminutive size, Homo floresiensis was
apparently smart enough to make and use tools, use fire and to find
the ideal shelter of the limestone cave.
"The fact that it had these behavioral associations with such a
small cranial capacity is astounding," said Potts. "It's a little
weird."
Despite the puzzlingly small brain size, Potts calls the
discovery "terrific" and the research "convincing," although he
adds that a team of paleo-anthropologists will need to see the
bones and travel to the site in order for the science community to
reach a consensus about adding a new branch to the already bushy
tree of human evolution.
Evolutionary Tree Gets Bushier
Other anthropologists are skeptical that the find is all it is
cracked up to be. Yohannes Haile-Selassie, curator at the Cleveland
Museum of Natural History in Ohio, thinks naming it a new species
is premature.
"I have mixed feelings about this whole thing," he said. "This
is one specimen. It could have a small body and brain size due to
disease or pathology."
In fact, many anthropologists have argued that in recent years,
scientists have been adding too many new species to the human
evolutionary tree. They say scientists have become too quick to
call what may simply be an unusual individual a member of a whole
new species.
"This will definitely be fuel for the splitters over those who
see many specimens as evidence of a new species," said David Begun,
an anthropologist at the University of Toronto.
The authors counter that since they submitted their paper they
have found five to seven more remains in the cave site whose
existence ranges from as long ago as 95,000 years ago to as
recently as 13,000 years ago. The features of the new bones suggest
they're of similar petite proportions. They add that
characteristics seen in modern people who have pathologies causing
a small brain were not evident in the ancient remains.
As for the little people's demise, geological records show there
was a massive volcanic eruption on the island about 12,000 years
ago, which could have eliminated any lingering populations. The
first signs of modern man on the island date to just 11,000 years
ago.
Roberts says the volcano could have "sealed the fate of the
hobbits and the pygmy elephants." But local folk tales on the
island of Flores hint that the small people may have persisted even
longer.
"The stories suggest there may be more than a grain of truth to
the idea that they were still living on Flores up until the Dutch
arrived in the 1500s," Roberts said. "The stories suggest they
lived in caves. The villagers would leave gourds with food out for
them to eat, but legend has it these were the guests from hell --
they'd eat everything, including the gourds!"
So did the two human species meet and interact? For now a lack
of evidence means we can only wonder -- and settle for the
fictional tales of J.R.R. Tolkien. INCLUDEPICTURE
"http://www.ctv.ca/archives/CTVNews/images/20041027/dwarf041027/160_skull_20041027.jpg"
\* MERGEFORMATINET