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Subject: Interesting
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:01:58 EDT


Hobbit" Discovered: Tiny Human Ancestor Found in Asia
Hillary Mayell
for National Geographic News
October 27, 2004

Scientists have found fossil skeletons of a hobbit-like species of human
that grew no larger than a three-year-old modern child . The tiny humans, who
had skulls about the size of grapefruits, lived with pygmy elephants and Komodo
dragons on a remote island in Indonesia as recently as 13,000 years ago.
Australian and Indonesian researchers discovered bones of the miniature
humans in a cave on Flores, an island midway between Asia and Australia.
Scientists have determined that the first skeleton they found belongs to a
species of human completely new to science. Named Homo floresiensis, after the
island on which it was found, the tiny human has also been dubbed by dig
workers as the "hobbit," after the tiny creatures from the Lord of the Rings
books.
The original skeleton, a female, stood at just 1 meter (3.3 feet) tall,
weighed about 25 kilograms (55 pounds), and was around 30 years old at the time
of her death 18,000 years ago.

(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1027_041027_homo_floresiensis.html#main)
















The skeleton was found in the same sediment deposits on Flores that have
also been found to contain stone tools and the bones of dwarf elephants, giant
rodents, and Komodo dragons.
Homo floresienses has been described as one of the most spectacular
discoveries in paleoanthropology in half a century—and the most extreme human ever
discovered.
The species inhabited Flores as recently as 13,000 years ago, which means it
would have lived at the same time as modern humans, scientists say.
"To find that as recently as perhaps 13,000 years ago, there was another
upright, bipedal—although small-brained—creature walking the planet at the same
time as modern humans is as exciting as it was unexpected," said Peter
Brown, a paleoanthropologist at the University of New England in New South Wales,
Australia.
Brown is a co-author of the study describing the findings, which appears in
the October 28 issue of the science journal Nature. The National Geographic
Society's Committee for Research and Exploration has sponsored the find. The
find will be covered in greater detail in a documentary airing early next year
on the National Geographic Channel.
"It is totally unexpected," said Chris Stringer, director of the Human
Origins program at the Natural History Museum in London. "To have early humans on
the remote island of Flores is surprising enough. That some are only about a
meter tall with a chimp-size brain is even more remarkable. That they were
still there less than 20,000 years ago, and [that] modern humans must have met
them, is astonishing."
The researchers estimate that the tiny people lived on Flores from about
95,000 years ago until at least 13,000 years ago. The scientists base their
theory on charred bones and stone tools found on the island. The blades,
perforators, points, and other cutting and chopping utensils were apparently used to
hunt big game.
In an accompanying Nature commentary, Marta Mirazón Lahr and Robert Foley,
both with the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies at the
University of Cambridge, England, describe Homo floresiensis as changing our
understanding of late human evolutionary geography, biology, and culture.
The discovery shows that the genus Homo is more varied and more flexible in
its ability to adapt than previously thought. (The genus Homo also includes
modern humans, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and Neandertals—all of which are
marked by relatively large braincases, erect posture, opposable thumbs, and the
ability to make tools.)
"Homo floresiensis is an addition to the short list of other human species
that lived at the same time as modern humans. I think people will be surprised
to learn that not so long ago, we were not alone," said Brown.
Lost World of Tiny People
Despite its smaller body size, smaller brain, and mixture of primitive and
advanced anatomical features, the new species falls firmly within the genus
Homo. The researchers speculate that the hobbit and her peers evolved from a
normal-size, island-hopping Homo erectus population that reached Flores around
840,000 years ago.
"Physically, they were about the size of a three-year old Homo sapiens
[modern human] child, but with a braincase only one-third as large," said Richard
Roberts, a geochronologist at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and
one on the co-authors of the research paper. "They had slightly longer arms
than us. More conspicuously, they had hard, thicker eyebrow ridges than us, a
sharply sloping forehead, and no chin."
"While they don't look like modern humans, some of their behaviors were
surprisingly human," said Brown, the study co-author.
The Flores people used fire in hearths for cooking and hunted stegodon, a
primitive dwarf elephant found on the island. Although small, the stegodon
still weighed about 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds), and would pose a significant
challenge to a hunter the size of a three-year-old modern human child.
Hunting must have required joint communication and planning, the researchers say.
Almost all of the stegodon fossils associated with the human artifacts are
of juveniles, suggesting the tiny humans selectively hunted the smallest
stegodons. The Flores humans' diets also included fish, frogs, snakes, tortoises,
birds, and rodents.
"The hobbit was nobody's fool," Roberts said. "They survived alongside us
[Homo sapiens] for at least 30,000 years, and we're not known for being very
amiable eco-companions. And the hobbits were managing some extraordinary things—
manufacturing sophisticated stone tools, hunting pygmy elephants, and
crossing at least two water barriers to reach Flores from mainland Asia—with a
brain only one-third the size of ours.
"Given that Homo floresiensis is the smallest human species ever discovered,
they out-punch every known human intellectually, pound for pound."
Both the tiny humans and the dwarfed elephants appear to have become extinct
at about the same time as the result of a major volcanic eruption.
Mingling of the Human Tribes
There is no evidence of modern humans reaching Flores before 11,000 years
ago, so it is unknown whether the hobbit intermingled with modern humans. The
researchers found hobbit and pygmy stegodon remains only below a
12,000-year-old volcanic ash layer. Modern human remains were found only above the layer.
Still, rumors, myths, and legends of tiny creatures have swirled around the
isolated island for centuries. It's certainly possible that they interacted
with modern humans, according to the researchers.
"Looked at from a regional perspective, we definitely have modern humans in
Australia from at least 40,000 years ago, and in Borneo from at least 43,000
years ago," Roberts said. "So there was temporal overlap between the hobbits
and ourselves from at least 40,000 years ago until at least 18,000 years ago—
more than 20,000 years minimum. What was the nature of their interaction? We
have absolutely no idea. We need more sites and more hard evidence, and
that's the next phase of our investigation."
Island Dwarfing
Researchers are also anxious to investigate how and why the hobbits came to
be so small. When scientists discovered the hobbit fossil, they thought it
was the skeleton of a child. There was no record of human adults that were that
small. Modern pygmies are considerably taller at about 1.4 to 1.5 meters
(4.6 to nearly 5 feet) tall.
"H. floresiensis presents an intriguing problem in evolutionary biology,"
Brown said.
The most likely explanation is that, over thousands of years, the species
became smaller because environmental conditions favored smaller body size.
Dwarfing of mammals on islands is a well-known process and seen worldwide.
Islands frequently provide a limited food supply, few predators, and few species
competing for the same environmental niche. Survival would depend on minimizing
daily energy requirements.
But there is no absolute proof that this is what in fact happened with this
small human.
"While there are stone tools dated as far back as 840,000 years ago, no
fossils of large-bodied ancestors have ever been found" on Flores, Brown said.
"There is some possibility [Homo floresiensis] arrived on the island
small-bodied."
"I could not have predicted such a discovery in a million years," said
Stringer, of London's Natural History Museum. "This find shows us how much we
still have to learn about human evolution, particularly in Southeast Asia."




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