History Forum / General / General Topics / October 2004

'Hobbit-sized' skeleton astounds scientists

INDONESIAN FIND: The skeleton of a small
female from 18,000 years ago on Flores is
an astonishing discovery that could rewrite
the history of human evolution

DPA and AP , Sydney and Denver
Taipei Times
Friday, October 29, 2004,Page 5
 An artist's impression released by the University of
Wollongong of a previously unknown human species
discovered on Flores.

Photo: AFP/Courtesy of Artist Peter Schouten/National
Geographic

Anthropologists are not often giddy with excitement, but
the unearthing of the skeleton of a meter-tall female who
hunted pygmy elephants and giant rats 18,000 years ago
has them whooping with delight the finding of another
piece of the puzzle of the origin of the species.

The finding on a remote eastern Indonesian island has
stunned anthropologists like no other in recent memory
and could rewrite the history of human evolution.

Affectionately called Hobbit, Homo floresiensis was found
on the floor of a limestone cave on the island of Flores
by Australian scientists working with their Indonesian
counterparts.

"This is one of the most astonishing discoveries I've
seen in my lifetime," bubbled Tim Flannery, South
Australia Museum director.

"To imagine that just 12,000 years ago you could have
gone to the island of Flores and seen these tiny little
creatures less than 1 meter high and weighing 16
kilograms living there is just amazing," he said.

The discover 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.

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 Flores. The mostly intact
female skeleton was found in September last year. Details
of the discovery appear in yesterday'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.

"The find is startling," said Robert Foley of Cambridge
University. "It's breathtaking to think that another
species of hominin existed so recently."

What puzzles scientists is that Homo floresiensis was
able to do so much with so little brain power.

Mike Morwood, the University of New England anthropology
professor who co-led the Flores team, reckoned that with
a brain of just 380cm3 the hairy little people of Flores
"would have been flat out chewing grass and nuts."

But they were accomplishing much more than that. Morwood
believes the proto humans sailed to the island. He points
to the evidence that they made primitive tools, hunted
pygmy elephants called stegodons and cooked their meat
and that of giant rats.

"Language is a given," Morwood said, reasoning that
hunting would require at least a primitive form of
communication because their elephant prey were up to
500kg and more than a match for one hunter.

He sees Flores as something of a "lost world" isolated
from evolutionary currents. It's a view that leads others
to suggest that other islands in Indonesia might harvest
other primitive human species.

"My suspicion is that there will be many more examples of
pygmy humans," Flannery said.

Homo floresiensis is the smallest human ever found. And,
since the discovery of Neanderthal remains in Europe 200
years ago, Homo floresiensis is the first new species.

We don't know yet what happened to the little people of
Flores but one possibility is that they were wiped out
during a volcanic eruption. Flannery believes the likely
answer is that the pygmy people were despatched by a
later line of Homo erectus, the Homo sapiens.

More at:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/10/29/2003208828

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