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History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Bart]

Compelling evidence demonstrates that 'Hobbit' fossil does not represent a new species of hominid

Most complete, interdisciplinary study published on raging controversy about fossil found in Flores, Indonesia
CHICAGO -- What may well turn out to be the definitive work in a debate that has been raging in palaeoanthropology for two years will be published in the November 2006 issue of Anatomical Record.

The new research comprehensively and convincingly makes the case that the small skull discovered in Flores, Indonesia, in 2003 does not represent a new species of hominid, as was claimed in a study published in Nature in 2004. Instead, the skull is most likely that of a small-bodied modern human who suffered from a genetic condition known as microcephaly, which is characterized by a small head.

     Skull cast and cast of the endocranial cavity (endocast) from the Royal College of Surgeons in London of a modern adult human who suffered from microcephaly. It is strikingly similar to the...  http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/2019.php?from=84621


"It's no accident that this supposedly new species of hominid was dubbed the 'Hobbit;'" said Robert R. Martin, PhD, Curator of Biological Anthropology at the Field Museum and lead author of the paper. "It is simply fanciful to imagine that this fossil represents anything other than a modern human." The new study is the most wide-ranging, multidisciplinary assessment of the problems associated with the interpretation of the 18,000-year-old Flores hominid yet to be published. The authors include experts on:


scaling effects of body size, notably with respect to the brain: Dr. Martin and Ann M. MacLarnon, PhD, School of Human & Life Sciences, Roehampton University in London;
clinical and genetic aspects of human microcephaly: William B. Dobyns, PhD, Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago; and
stone tools: James Phillips, PhD, Departments of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Field Museum.
This is just one of four separate research teams that have recently published evidence indicating concluding that the Flores hominid is far more likely to be a small-bodied modern human suffering from a microcephaly than a new species derived from Homo erectus, as was claimed in the original Nature paper.

     Skull cast and cast of the endocranial cavity (endocast) from a 32-year old woman who had the body size of a 12-year-old child. She lived in Lesotho, a county in Southern Africa,...   http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/2020.php?from=84621

   
Significantly, the second most recent publication to conclude that the "Hobbit" was microcephalic--another multidimensional study that was published in the September 5, 2006, issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences--includes a co-author who was also a co-author of the original publication in Nature. That scientist, R.P. Soejono of the National Archaeological Research Center in Jakarta, Indonesia, now writes that the Flores hominid was microcephalic rather than a new hominid species.

Rewriting science
The starting point for the new research in Anatomical Record was the realization that the brain of the Flores skull (at 400 cc, the size of a grapefruit and less than one-third of the normal size for a modern human) is simply too small to fit anything previously known about human brain evolution. In addition, the stone tools found at the same site include types of tools that have only been reported for our own species, Homo sapiens.

Brain size of the Flores hominid, originally called Homo floresiensis, is known only from the main specimen discovered there, the LB1 skeleton. Skeletal fragments have been attributed to eight other individuals, but nothing can be said about their brain sizes. (They are small-bodied, but that has never been at issue.)

The new exhaustive research shows that the LB1 brain is simply too small to have been derived from H. erectus by evolutionary dwarfing, as was claimed by those who discovered it. In fact, the size of the brain corresponds very closely to the average value for modern human microcephalics. Microcephaly is a term that covers many conditions. There are more than 400 different human genes for which mutations can result in small brain size. Accordingly, there is a correspondingly wide range of different syndromes that are recognized in clinical practice. Many syndromes involve pronounced deficits ("low-functioning microcephaly"), but some have milder effects ("high-functioning microcephaly"), permitting survival into adulthood and a surprising degree of behavioral competence in certain cases. Microcephaly is often associated with severely reduced stature, but some microcephalics have relatively normal body size.

Because the LB1 skeleton is clearly that of an adult, it should obviously be compared with "high-functioning" modern human microcephalics rather than with "low-functioning" microcephalics who died early. The new study shows that skulls and brain casts from two modern human microcephalics who survived into adulthood are actually quite similar to those of the LB1 specimen. This supports the likelihood that LB1 was microcephalic.

    This graph shows the cranial capacities in cubic centimeters for 118 fossil hominids plotted against time, extending back almost 3.5 million years. The arrow indicates the highly incongruous value reported in Nature by...   http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/2021.php?from=84621   
Also, it has been claimed that LB1 had unusually large teeth ("megadonty"). However, it turns out that the teeth are not particularly large, after allowing for the expected effect of dwarfing. They are actually closely similar in size to those of a modern human microcephalic.

Another area of controversy concerns the stone tools discovered in association with the Flores fossils. Initially, the discoverers claimed that the tools were sophisticated, as indeed they are. More recently, continuity has been claimed with tools from Mata Menge on Flores that are purportedly 800,000 years ago. This is simply implausible, according to the authors of the new research.

"Nobody has even claimed cultural continuity in stone tool technology over such a long period (800,000 to 18,000 years ago)," Dr. Phillips said. "To do so ignores the significance of tools found with the LB1 skeleton that were made with the advanced prepared-core technique, otherwise confined to Neanderthals and modern humans."

There has been too much media hype and not enough sound scientific evaluation surrounding this discovery, Dr. Martin concluded. "Science needs more balance and less acrimony as we continue to unravel this discovery."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-10/fm-ced100206.php

[Solomon]

And another hypothesis bites the dust!

Solomon

[Bart]

One would think that if there was evidence for the fantastic claims, this press release would be the place to trot it out. But alas... it appears to be a book promotion, and a desperate grasp for the the illusive '15 minutes of fame'.

 "Skepticism and rigour in assessing new findings and claims are fundamental in science, but so are objectivity, an open mind and the capacity to take on board the unexpected," Professor Moorwood said. " And so we equate it with aspects of a novel?


- Bart


Hobbit like humans show Indonesia was "middle earth"

Anna Henderson

Monday 15 January 2007

      In a world first, a book detailing the discovery of a lost species of hobbit-like people who lived on a remote tropical Indonesian island less than 20,000 years ago was launched in Armidale in northern NSW on Saturday.

     According to research completed by University of New England Professor, Mike Moorwood, the artefacts his group unearthed during a 2003 archaeological dig on Flores Island suggest a kind of "middle earth" existed there, with metre-high humans hunting miniature elephants, giant rodents and Komodo dragons.

     Professor Moorwood wrote "The Discovery of the Hobbit" about the Liang Bua limestone caves on Flores Island in consultation with colleague Penny Van Oosterzee. The Armidale-based project included a team of Australian and Indonesian specialists and was facilitated through the local Flores community.

     The book details the existence of an ancient group of people, "a previously unsuspected, tiny species of human living on a remote island in east Indonesia, and overlapping considerably in time with us," and explains the modern day politics that have surrounded the breakthrough.

     The near complete preserved skeleton found by the team was affectionately known as "The Hobbit" because it bore striking similarities to JRR Tolkien's famous characters in Lord of the Rings.

     The bones are thought to be those of a Homo Floresiensis, a hairless adult female about one metre in height with a head the size of a grapefruit, long neck and arms, a flat nose, large teeth and no chin, a previously unknown human species.

     Homo Floresiensis was a major international evolutionary find, sending shockwaves through the scientific community across the world with far reaching potential historical, religious, social and biological implications.

     The international media response was frenzied with Professor Moorwood and his colleagues fielding hundreds of calls for interviews daily, gaining coverage across the globe. The authors describe the flurry of media activity in the book; "This was a scientific discovery being talked about in villages, towns and urban centres everywhere. It was a topic of conversation in beauty salons and barbershops, school and university staffrooms and every type of workplace imaginable."

     The revelation of a human with small brain and dwarfed feature was made more groundbreaking by the complex tools found in the same area of the excavated site. The existence of these implements suggested the species was able to hunt, use fire and even developed a language many years before the characteristics of modern human civilisation.

     Professor Moorwood said the implications were "far-reaching" and "staggering" because if correct they showed brain size may not be the predicator of intelligence.

     The find was not without controversy and the legitimacy of the claims was put into question by scientists around the world. The evidence flies in the face of much accepted research into the evolution of the modern human.

     Claims that a group of Indonesian academics hijacked and sabotaged the bones to conceal the truth of the discovery are all documented in the book along with the arguments of many of the critics.

     The authors welcome the response of the cynics but have used the book to reveal their first-person account of the discovery.

     "Skepticism and rigour in assessing new findings and claims are fundamental in science, but so are objectivity, an open mind and the capacity to take on board the unexpected," Professor Moorwood said.

Source

http://moora.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=national%20news&subclass=general&story_id=547706&category=general

[Baja Bush Pilot]

The chance discovery of an enormous chamber beneath the Indonesian cave where hobbit-like creatures were discovered promises to settle the debate about who ? or what ? the tiny creatures were.

Scientists are confident the mystery will be solved if they can extract DNA from "hobbit" remains they expect to find among the rubble of 32,000- to 80,000-year-old bones and stone tools littering the cavern floor.

"Well, well, well, well, well; this will settle the matter," said Colin Groves, a physical anthropologist at the Australian National University in Canberra.

He said obtaining a "CSI"-style DNA profile of the three-foot-tall creatures ? tentatively named Homo floresiensis ? would prove conclusively if they were members of a new human species, as their discoverers claimed, or deformed modern people, as alleged by skeptics.

The original hobbit remains, found four years ago, have so far failed to yield any DNA.

The Australian learned of the new chamber and its DNA potential Monday, just as international scientists reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they had compared a series of normal and abnormal human skulls with that of the hobbit and found that the hobbit was not an abnormal modern human.

The unexpected discovery of a chamber in the Flores island cave was made last year by an Australian-Indonesian team ? led by ANU paleoclimatologist Mike Gagan ? while they were investigating ancient climates.

An expert caver assisting in sample retrieval rappelled down a 75-foot-long sinkhole, inaccessible to the original team, at the back of Liang Bua Cave and found the chamber.

"I'd be very surprised if hobbits didn't fall down there," said archeologist Mike Morwood, co-leader of the team that discovered the hobbits.

"If they get [uncontaminated] bone and DNA out of there, it would be mind-boggling," said Professor Morwood, of Wollongong University.

According to Dr Gagan, they found bones of numerous species, from stegodons [an ancient species of elephant] and giant rats to pigs and primates. Many showed evidence of butchery.

"The bones are also in pristine condition," he said.

Dr Gagan said he and his Indonesian colleagues surveyed just the top two inches of a 15-foot-deep layer of mud in the 4,600-square-foot cavern.

"Imagine what's below," he said. "It might have been a split-level home for hobbits."

Dr. Gagan's team will return to the cave in June, with additional members, including Alan Cooper, an expert in ancient DNA with Adelaide University, and CSIRO mammalogist Ken Aplin.

Professor Morwood's group will also return to Liang Bua this year, after previously being denied access by Indonesian officials.

Both groups will continue to collaborate with the Indonesian National Research Center for Archaeology. Dr. Gagan's group is also working with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,248185,00.html

[Diving Doc]

Very Nice Post,
Thanks Barry,
Doc

[Bart]

Yes it, no it isn't , (sigh) our great grandchildren will be posting these debates here long after we are gone. 

- Bart

Anthropologist Confirms Hobbit Indeed a Separate Species

Newswise -

     After the skeletal remains of an 18,000-year-old, Hobbit-sized human were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, some scientists thought that the specimen must have been a pygmy or a microcephalic, a human with an abnormally small skull.

     Not so, said Dean Falk, a world-renowned paleoneurologist and chair of Florida State University's anthropology department, who along with an international team of experts created detailed maps of imprints left on the ancient hominid's braincase and concluded that the so-called Hobbit was actually a new species closely related to Homo sapiens.

     Now after further study, Falk is absolutely convinced that her team was right and that the species cataloged as LB1, Homo floresiensis, is definitely not a human born with microcephalia, a somewhat rare pathological condition that still occurs today. Usually the result of a double-recessive gene, the condition is characterized by a small head and accompanied by some mental retardation.

     We have answered the people who contend that the Hobbit is a microcephalic, Falk said of her team's study of both normal and microcephalic human brains published in the Jan. 29 issue of the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States).

     The debate stemmed from the fact that archaeologists had found sophisticated tools and evidence of a fire near the remains of the 3-foot-tall adult female with a brain roughly one-third the size of a contemporary human.

     People refused to believe that someone with that small of a brain could make the tools. How could it be a sophisticated new species??

     But that is exactly what it is, according to Falk, whose team had previously created a virtual endocast from a three-dimensional computer model of the Hobbit's braincase, which reproduces the surface of the brain including its shape, grooves, vessels and sinuses. The endocasts revealed large parts of the frontal lobe and other anatomical features consistent with higher cognitive processes.

     LB1 has a highly evolved brain, she said. It didn't get bigger, it got rewired and reorganized, and that's very interesting.

     In this latest study, the researchers compared 3-D, computer-generated reconstructions of nine microcephalic modern human brains and 10 normal modern human brains. They found that certain shape features completely separate the two groups and that Hobbit classifies with normal humans rather than microcephalic humans in these features. In other ways, however, Hobbit's brain is unique, which is consistent with its attribution to a new species.

     Comparison of two areas in the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe and the back of the brain show the Hobbit brain is nothing like a microcephalic's and is advanced in a way that is different from living humans. In fact, the LB1 brain was the antithesis of the microcephalic brain, according to Falk, a finding the researchers hope puts this part of the Hobbit controversy to rest.

     It?s time to move on to other important questions, Falk said, namely the origin of this species that co-existed at the same time that Homo sapiens was presumed to be the Earth's sole human inhabitant.

     It is the $64,000 question: "Where did it come from?" she said. "Who did it descend from, who are its relatives, and what does it say about human evolution? That is the real excitement about this discovery. "

     Falk's co-authors on the PNAS paper, Brain shape in human microcephalics and Homo floresiensis, are Charles Hildebolt, Kirk Smith and Fred Prior of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis; M.J. Morwood of the University of New England in Australia; Thomas Sutikna, E. Wayhu Saptomo and Jatmiko of the Indonesian Centre for Archaeology in Indonesia; Herwig Imhof of the Medical University of Vienna, Austria; and Horst Seidler of the University of Vienna, Austria.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/526845/

[Solomon]

'Hobbit' human 'is a new species'
The tiny skeletal remains of human "Hobbits" found on an Indonesian island belong to a completely new branch of our family tree, a study has found.

The finds caused a sensation when they were announced to the world in 2004.

But some researchers argued the bones belonged to a modern human with a combination of small stature and a brain disorder called microcephaly.

That claim is rejected by the latest study, which compares the tiny people with modern microcephalics.


Virtual endocasts (red) from sectioned skulls (blue) of a human microcephalic (l) and LB1 (r), the fossil specimen of Homo floresiensis. Images were produced using 3D computed tomography (CT). (Image: Kirk E. Smith, Electronic Radiology Laboratory, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology)

Microcephaly is a rare pathological condition in humans characterised by a small brain and cognitive impairment.

In the new study, Dean Falk, of Florida State University, and her colleagues say the remains are those of a completely separate human species: Homo floresiensis.

They have published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The remains at the centre of the Hobbit controversy were discovered at Liang Bua, a limestone cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, in 2003.

Researchers found one near-complete skeleton, which they named LB1, along with the remains of at least eight other individuals.

The specimens were nicknamed Hobbits after the tiny creatures in JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Computer model
The researchers believe the 1m-tall (3ft) people evolved from an unknown small-bodied, small-brained ancestor, which they think became small in stature to cope with the limited supply of food on the island.

The little humans are thought to have survived until about 12,000 years ago, when a volcanic eruption devastated the region.


The Hobbit has forced a re-think of human evolution

LB1 possessed a brain size of around 400 cubic cm (24 cu inches) - about the same as that of a chimp.

Long arms, a sloping chin and other primitive features suggested affinities to ancient human species such as Homo habilis.

Professor Falk's analysis used the skulls of 10 normal humans, nine microcephalics, one dwarf and the Hobbit.

The brain leaves a mirror image imprinted onto the skull, from which anatomists can reconstruct its shape. The resulting brain cast is called an endocast.

Professor Falk's team scanned all 21 skulls into a computer and then created a "virtual endocast" using specialist software.

Then, they used statistical techniques to study shape differences between the brain casts and to classify them into two different groups: one microcephalic, the other normal.

Advanced tools
The dwarf's brain fell into the microcephalic category, while the Hobbit brain fell into the normal group - despite its small size.

In other ways, however, the Hobbit brain is unique, which is consistent with its attribution to a new species.

Archaeologists had found sophisticated tools and evidence of a fire near the remains of the 1m-tall adult female.

"People refused to believe that someone with that small of a brain could make the tools," said Professor Falk.

She said the Hobbit brain was nothing like that of a microcephalic and was advanced in a way that is different from living humans.

A previous study of LB1's endocast revealed that large parts of the frontal lobe and other anatomical features were consistent with higher cognitive processes.

"LB1 has a highly evolved brain," said Professor Falk. "It didn't get bigger, it got rewired and reorganised, and that's very interesting."

This apparently contrasts with LB1's other "primitive" anatomical features.

In September last year, Professor Teuku Jacob and colleagues published a scientific study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which claimed the Hobbit showed similarities to living pygmies and to microcephalics.

However, a different analysis by Australian researchers, published last year in the Journal of Human Evolution, supported the idea that LB1 was a creature new to science.

Pygmoid Australomelanesian Homo sapiens skeletal remains from Liang Bua, Flores: Population affinities and pathological abnormalities

T. Jacob*, E. Indriati*, R. P. Soejono{dagger}, K. Hs?{ddagger},?, D. W. Frayer?, R. B. Eckhardt?,||, A. J. Kuperavage||, A. Thorne**, and M. Henneberg{dagger}{dagger}

*Laboratory of Bioanthropology and Paleoanthropology, Gadjah Mada University Faculty of Medicine, Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia; {dagger}National Archaeological Research Center, J1. Raya Condet Pejaten No. 4, Jakarta 12001, Indonesia; {ddagger}Kenneth Hs? Center for Integrated Hydrologic Circuits Development, National Institute of Earth Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; ?Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045; ||Laboratory for the Comparative Study of Morphology, Mechanics, and Molecules, Department of Kinesiology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802; **Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200 Australia; and {dagger}{dagger}Anatomical Sciences, School of Medical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide SA 5005, Australia

Contributed by K. Hs?, July 7, 2006

Liang Bua 1 (LB1) exhibits marked craniofacial and postcranial asymmetries and other indicators of abnormal growth and development. Anomalies aside, 140 cranial features place LB1 within modern human ranges of variation, resembling Australomelanesian populations. Mandibular and dental features of LB1 and LB6/1 either show no substantial deviation from modern Homo sapiens or share features (receding chins and rotated premolars) with Rampasasa pygmies now living near Liang Bua Cave. We propose that LB1 is drawn from an earlier pygmy H. sapiens population but individually shows signs of a developmental abnormality, including microcephaly. Additional mandibular and postcranial remains from the site share small body size but not microcephaly.

The Brain of LB1, Homo floresiensis
Dean Falk,1* Charles Hildebolt,2 Kirk Smith,2 M. J. Morwood,3 Thomas Sutikna,4 Peter Brown,3 Jatmiko,4 E. Wayhu Saptomo,4 Barry Brunsden,2 Fred Prior2

The brain of Homo floresiensis was assessed by comparing a virtual endocast from the type specimen (LB1) with endocasts from great apes, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, a human pygmy, a human microcephalic, specimen number Sts 5 (Australopithecus africanus), and specimen number WT 17000 (Paranthropus aethiopicus). Morphometric, allometric, and shape data indicate that LB1 is not a microcephalic or pygmy. LB1's brain/body size ratio scales like that of an australopithecine, but its endocast shape resembles that of Homo erectus. LB1 has derived frontal and temporal lobes and a lunate sulcus in a derived position, which are consistent with capabilities for higher cognitive processing.

1 Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
2 Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
3 Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales 2351, Australia.
4 Indonesian Centre for Archaeology, JI. Raya Condet Pejaten No. 4, Jakarta 12001, Indonesia.

[Bart]

There are not just two camps here anymore, meaning a new species vs a microcephaly camp. A new search in a newly found area near the spot where the first skull was discovered may help disprove microcephaly, but not necessarily prove a new species. If microcephaly is ruled out, the two new camps will be new species vs 'normal human-but-inbred-dwarf'. If anything is ruled out, it will be progress, and progress is good!

- Bart

   For three years researchers have feuded over the rightful classification of the Hobbit, a diminutive, 18,000-year-old specimen unearthed from the Indonesian island of Flores. Is it an entirely new species, as its discoverers have maintained, or merely a small-brained human? Last week, officials reopened the site where the Hobbit was found as well as a newly discovered cavern underneath it, raising hope that diggers might soon bring convincing new evidence to bear.

     Image: COURTESY OF KIRK E. SMITH/Electronic Radiology Laboratory, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology 

 DOUBLE TROUBLE?  A second small Hobbit skull similar to the first

would convince some skeptics, but not all of them that they are dealing with a new species, as opposed to a dwarf or a diseased human

. 

   A second skull would be especially helpful. Critics of the new species theory have latched onto the Hobbit's measly 400-cubic-centimeter brain as a sure sign of an abnormality called microcephaly in which the brain does not reach normal size. Some prominent advocates of a human Hobbit say that a second skull could settle the debate. "It's the acid test," says primatologist Robert Martin of the Field Museum in Chicago, who contends that the existing Hobbit skull is a malformed human skull. If he is correct, a second skull would be closer to 1,000 cubic centimeters, he says.

   A newfound skull just as small, however, would weaken the microcephaly view, agrees John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin Madison. "I completely accept that the skeleton is pathological," he says. Nevertheless, "if a second skull were found with the same brain size as the first, the game is over. We find humans with extremely small brain size once in a while, but finding two in an archaeological sample is just implausible, unless they sample a population where extremely small brains are the norm."

   Some other holdouts against the separate species view say the question is less straightforward. "Reopening the cave is great and I am confident that the investigators will find more material similar to that already recovered," says evolutionary biologist Gary Richards of the University of California, Berkeley, who has argued that the Hobbit represents a dwarfed but healthy?human. "Unlike others, I am of the opinion that this will not confirm that the remains are a [new] species."
 
   According to Richards, if the Hobbit specimen is truly a dwarf, it would not have been the only one. Thanks to inbreeding, "significant numbers of individuals would have been present in the population that shared the same condition, so multiple individuals are to be expected," he says. Paleoanthropologist Robert Eckhardt of Pennsylvania State University, a proponent of the pathological view, says he would take another pea-brained Hobbit as sign of a hereditary deformity, given the existence of human families in which microcephaly was passed down through several generations.

   So what would it take to convince hardcore skeptics that the Hobbit is its own species? Eckhardt says the question "approaches this problem from the wrong way around," because in his view the specimen's pathology is well established.

   Richards says the question of the Hobbit's species status is currently unanswerable. The intriguing part, he notes, is what the Hobbit can teach us about evolution. As he sees it, the genetic pathways that lead to dwarfism in modern humans are well understood, and a detailed study of multiple Hobbit specimens could help tease apart which pathways gave rise to and maintained this lilliputian population.

   "The import of this to understanding the history of evolutionary change in the human lineage is huge," he says. "But most of my colleagues would rather argue about whether or not this represents a new species." That debate could ultimately be resolved but "only by keeping an open mind about these remains, are we going to be in a position to determine whether they represent a new species?" he says.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=9952B598-E7F2-99DF-362B9E01E27CD7B0

[Solomon]

In the small island of Malta is a cave in which the bones of dwarf animals were found. I was told (long ago) dwarfism occured after the Atlantic burst the 'Pillars of Hercules' at Gibraltar and formed the Mediterranean. Surviving animals were restricted to islands. I wonder whether a similar process could have happened here.

Solomon

[Baja Bush Pilot]

'Hobbit' Was Distinct Species, Wrist Bones Indicate


A smoking gun that could snuff out a hot debate over skeletal remains dubbed the "hobbit" is in hand, literally, according to a group of scientists.

Three wrist bones provide key evidence supporting the argument that fossil remains of an ancient, undersized individual represent a new hominin species that walked the Earth with modern humans, say the study scientists.

The wrist bones resemble those in apes more than those in humans, the researchers write in the Sept. 21 issue of the journal Science.
 
Until now, most had assumed that we (modern humans) strode the planet with just one other Homo species, the Neanderthals, and when these guys went extinct, we represented the sole-surviving members of the human genus.

Now it seems, we might have hung out with another Homo species.

"Up until [the hobbit remains] were discovered, we thought we were the only ones for at least 30,000 years, because 30,000 years ago Neanderthals went extinct," said lead author Matthew Tocheri, an anthropologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.


Three species' wrist bones; the colors show where other bones touch

Tiny humans?

First unearthed in 2003 in the Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, the remains belong to a three-foot-tall (one meter) adult female, who was about 30 years old when she died 18,000 years ago.

Her stature, combined with evidence from other fossils found at the site, paint a picture of a diminutive bipedal individual who used stone tools and fire while hunting the island's pygmy elephants, Komodo dragons and giant rats.

Since the discovery, scientists have debated whether the specimen represents a new hominin species called Homo floresiensis, possibly a dwarfed offshoot of Homo erectus, a human ancestor that lived as far back as 1.8 million years ago.

Critics, including biological anthropologist Robert Martin of the Field Museum in Chicago, say the remains belonged to a human with microcephalia, a pathological condition characterized by a small head, short stature and some mental retardation.

The hobbit's brain was about one-third the size of a modern adult human's brain.

Hands down finding

In the new work, Tocheri and his colleagues analyzed three wrist bones from the hobbit skeleton, technically called Liang Bua 1 or LB1.

The shape and orientation of the bones matched those of non-human apes and were very different from the wrist bones of Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and modern humans.

For example, the human trapezoid is boot-shaped, while the same wrist bone in LB1 is wedge-shaped.

"Are they a distinct species or are they pathological modern humans?" asks study leader Tocheri. "I think it's pretty clear that this is a smoking gun, that they are not pathological modern humans. Modern human wrists, normal or abnormal, don't look like an otherwise normal chimpanzee wrist."

After considering the new findings, Martin, who doubts the Homo floresiensis theory, said: "I think it's a pathological modern human," meaning it represents one of us, but with a disease.

He said microcephalia, which shrinks human heads, could also have affected the wrist bones (though nobody has tested this idea).

While Martin says he believes the wrist bones of LB1 match those of earlier hominin species, he points out they weren't compared with Homo erectus, for which wrist bones don't yet exist.

In addition, the finding doesn't rule out microcephalia as the cause of the primitive-looking wrist bones, he said.

However, Martin admits many scientists are on the "new species" side of the debate.

"Most of my colleagues believe this is a new species and that the tiny brain is normal, and I just don't accept that," Martin said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297505,00.html

[Diving Doc]

Barry,

Very nice post.

That much more grist for the mill!

Cheers,
Doc

[Jesus of Lubeck]

Hello Baja and Doc,

Baja, thank you for the latest post on the would-be Homo floresiensis wrist bones.  I do think it is possible to take the discussion of this evidence a little further in that this study of the bones of the ossa carpi (hand) and wrist bones in particular (the scaphoid and lunate) may bring us closer to understanding how the hands of this individual articulated (am I correct in judging that the image in your post illustrates, from left to right, modern human, modern ape, and, far right, Homo floresiensis?).


Late Pleistocene(?) stone tool assemblage from Flores, Indonesia, found in context with Homo floresiensis

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to examine the artifact assemblage found, it is reported, with the near-fossil remains of the seven h. floresiensis individuals located in Liang Bua Cave.  Initial reports of this stone tool assemblage state that the artifacts are diminuative (like the subject hominin) and date to horizons ranging from 94,000 to 13,000 years ago.



The question suggested by the new wrist evidence is whether a hominin form where the scaphoid and lunate bones articulate with the radius and ulna in a manner more similar to an ape than a human is able to fashion such fine tools?

Source:

Bones of the Hand from Wikipedia

Further evidence for small-bodied hominins from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia

Morwood, M. J.; Brown, P., Jatmiko, Sutikna, T., Wahyu Saptomo, E., Westaway, K. E., Rokus Awe Due, Roberts, R. G., Maeda, T., Wasisto, S. & Djubiantono, T. (13 October 2005). Nature 437: 1012�1017

[Baja Bush Pilot]

You are probably right, Lubby, about the order of the images, but the article wasn't specific.  I think it is a wonderful idea to try to find out if more apelike hands could have fashioned such tools.  I seem to remember we have a member with expertise as a knapper but who it is escapes me at this moment.  Bart?  If we could get that person together with an orthopedic anthropologist, assuming there is such a specialist, we might get a better idea of the possibility of this being a new species.

One of the comments that stuck in my mind (not that many things do anymore) when this first became public was by one of the first anthropologists to claim Hobbit was Floresiensis.  He said he would have been much less surprised to find the remains were of an alien from somewhere other than earth.  That got my attention.

[Bart]

'Hobbit' wrist bones suggest a distinct species

19:00 20 September 2007 ,NewScientist.com news service

Bob Holmes

   The tiny, human-like creature living and using tools in Indonesia just 18,000 years ago really was a distinct species, not just a malformed modern human.



   That is the clear implication of a new study of the so-called "hobbit". It states that the creature had wrist bones almost identical to those found in early hominids and modern chimpanzees, and so must have diverged from the human lineage well before the origin of modern humans and Neanderthals.

   Palaeontologists have battled bitterly over the diminutive skeleton ever since its discoverers described it as a new species, Homo floresiensis, three years ago.

   Its exceptionally tiny brain simply did not fit with the current understanding of human evolution, particularly since no other hominid fossils in the last 3 million years, and none outside of Africa, had such a small brain.
This dissonance led sceptics to argue that the hobbit must be merely a modern human with some form of microcephaly � a disorder which causes an abnormally small head and brain.

   Most of the argument has centered on the skull, even though much of the rest of the skeleton was excavated at the same time. When Matthew Tocheri, a palaeoanthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, happened by chance to see casts of the specimen's wrist bones, he knew they told an important story.

Ancient structure

   Tocheri, an expert in the evolution of the human wrist, could see immediately that the hobbit's wrist bones looked just like those of a chimpanzee, or an early hominid such as Australopithecus, and had none of the specialisations for grasping that are seen in the wrist bones of modern humans. A careful statistical comparison gave the same conclusion.

   "The modern human wrist hasn't looked like this for at least 800,000 years, and maybe much longer," says Tocheri. "It was immediately apparent to me that the hobbit is the real deal."
Developmental abnormalities such as microcephaly are unlikely to change the shape of the wrist bones, he adds, because the shape of these bones is laid down very early in development, long before the genes controlling growth rates become active.

   Other soon-to-be-published studies of the hobbit's foot bones, upper arm and shoulder also suggest that its anatomy differed from that of modern humans. "As you add these up, you do certainly get a picture of something distinct and not human," says Chris Stringer, an authority on human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London, UK.

   However, Robert Martin, a primatologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, US, who is the leading advocate of the microcephaly explanation, remains unconvinced. No one has studied the wrist bones of microcephalic humans, he notes, so it is pure conjecture to say they would not look like the hobbit's bones.

Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1147143)

[Jesus of Lubeck]

Hello Bart,

Thank you for your post as well as the points made.  It is likely that the controversy concerning whether h. floresiensis is, or is not, a new species will continue, although the new species proponents have developed a new line of argument supported by the bones of the wrist found with one of the skeletal remains in Liang Bua cave, Indonesia.

We will certainly watch how this debate of the evidence develops.  Interestingly, when new evidence is introduced to an archaeological or anthropological debate on subjects related to human prehistory, frequently new questions and controversies emerge.  In light of the new wrist bone evidence, the relationship between the stone-tool assemblage and the would-be h. floresiensis fossils remains very important.  Dr. Tochari is quoted in the article presented in your post (response 13) as stating:

Tocheri, an expert in the evolution of the human wrist, could see immediately that the hobbit's wrist bones looked just like those of a chimpanzee, or an early hominid such as Australopithecus, and had none of the specializations for grasping that are seen in the wrist bones of modern humans. A careful statistical comparison gave the same conclusion.

Turning to the question of whether the Liang Bua fossil hominin forms had wrists capable of sophisticated stone tool making requires confronting another line of established evidence.

Australopithecines, a species Dr. Tochari states possessed wrist bones with affinities to h. floresiensis, are only cited as possibly being associated with single-knapped stone tools.  The earliest scientifically established hominid association with knapped stone tools remains homo habilis and homo rudolfensis.  In each case, the lithic technology is characterized by that of the Oldawan tool type and its different modes.  These Oldawan tool assemblages, which date to approximately 2.5 million BCE.

Here is a summary of these two hominid forms associated with Oldowan lithic technology courtesy of www.originsnet.org :

Paleontology: Homo habilis and the more recently discovered Homo rudolfensis appear in the fossil record at about the same time as the earliest Oldowan tools. Most paleoanthropologists consider that they were the innovators of Mode I technology. Associations of stone tools with earlier or contemporaneous Australopithecines are not yet evident.(moderator's emphasis)
 
Tool Characteristics:

�   Mode I Pre-Oldowan. Earliest known hominid tool sites, such as Gona, Omo, Hadar, Lokalalei, Senge, which are dated from around 2.5 MYA (million years ago) to 2 MYA, appear to represent an early phase of Oldowan technology. The Oldowan industry may be called the 'core-flake' industry since it comprises cores and flakes or the "pebble tool" industry since the cores are often waterworn pebbles. The 'Pre-Oldowan' industry seems characterized by a skillful use of bipolar knapping technique in which a stone is placed on an anvil stone and struck with a hammerstone to detach 'flakes' from the 'core'. The flakes were used as cutting tools. The Pre-Oldowan may itself have been preceded by a still earlier phase in which pebbles were simply shattered to yield debris with sharp cutting edges, although there is no convincing evidence yet for such a stage.

�   Mode I Classic Oldowan. This industry is defined on the basis of artifact assemblages from Bed I and Lower Bed II, Olduvai Gorge (c. 1.9-1.6 MYA, i.e., million years ago). It is characterized by use of a hammerstone to detach 'flakes' from a pebble or cobble 'core'. The bipolar tradition continues, with addition of direct percussion of stone as it is held in the hand. Flaked material consists primarily of cores (sometimes called 'core-tools'), flakes and other 'utilized material'. Cores are classified as choppers, discoids, polyhedrons, scrapers, spheroids and subspheroids, burins. Utilized material includes battered hammerstones and anvils; utilized, unmodified, and waste ('d�bitage') flakes; and manuports, that is, unmodified cobbles and other rocks that have been brought to the site by early humans.

�   Mode I Developed Oldowan. This industry at Olduvai (c. 1.6 MYA) includes the addition of protobifaces, which may be an indigenous development or influenced by contemporary Acheulian industries. A comparable development occurs at Koobi Fora, the Karari industry (c. 1.5 MYA). Some Oldowan-type artifacts, such as choppers, may occur in stone-tool assemblages up to the present time.
 
Economic Subsistence Mode: Oldowan hominids primarily gathered fruits and vegetables and scavenged, medium and large size game. Possibly, like chimpanzees, Oldowan hominids occasionally killed small game to supplement their diet.

Oldowan - NW Europe - m) Jabeekian pebble tools, Netherlands
Comment: Attributed to microlithic of the Chopper-Chopping Tool Complex (micro-CCC). Cromerian dating, c. 500,000-800,000 by geological profile, Archaeologische Berichten 19:81-82. However a more recent dating to the Holsteinian, c. 400,000 BP is argued in Peeters, H., Musch, J., Wouters, A. (1988). Les plus anciennes industries des Pays-Bas. L'Anthropologie 92,2:683-710.
Photo � A. Wouters. In Wouters, A., Franssen, C, and Kessels. A. (1981). Typologie van de artefacten van de Chopper-Choppingtool Complexen. Archaeologische Berichten 10:18-117. Stichtung Archaeologische Berichten, Elst, NL. Jabeek discovered and collected L. Reubsaet. For descriptions of these sites and traditions see special issue on Boukoulian, Archaeologische Berichten 19 (1989). [source:www.originsnet.org]


The first double-knapped (bifacies) stone tools indisputably associated with a fossil hominid are those of the Archeulian cultural horizon produced by homo erectus and h. ergaster (1.8 to approximately 200,000 BCE).  The Archeulian lithic technology represented a major improvement in stone tool manufacture. These lithic tools are much more sophisticated and efficient in comparison with the Oldowan horizon material.  Homo erectus, incidentally was first discovered in 1891 on the Indonesian Island of Java.  In Java, the fossil record indicates a fairly late survival of homo erectus in comparison to the disappearance of this species in other areas of the world. Finds from the Ngandon site in Java are reported to date to between 50,000 and 25,000 years BCE.


Archeulian bifacies (double-knapped) lithic date range: 300,000 to 230,000 BCE (found Zhoukoudan in China)

Here is a summary of the hominid forms associated with Archeulian lithic technology again courtesy of www.originsnet.net :

Paleontology: This period saw the evolution of Homo erectus and Homo ergaster, an African variant of Homo erectus, who were associated with Mode II technology. Apparently, Homo heidelbergensis evolved from Homo ergaster/erectus in Africa and Europe, and, in turn, appears to have evolved into Homo sapiens archaicus and neanderthalis.

Tool Characteristics: Mode II Acheulian industry. Characterized by bifaces (also called 'handaxes'). Assemblages are known from 1.4 MYA at Peninj and Konso-Gardula and appear to have spread out of Africa into the Middle East, China and eventually Europe. Based originally on numerous bifaces found at the site of St. Acheul, France, the term is applied to stone assemblages with large bifacially flaked tools, including bifacial 'handaxes', cleavers and picks. The evolution appears to move from Oldowan core choppers to Early Acheulian 2-dimensional bifaces to elegantly 3-D symmetrical handaxes in later Acheulian periods.
 
So-called 'Chopper-Chopping Tool' (CCC) industries are also known from the same time period throughout Africa, Asia and Europe. Examples include the Clactonian of northern Europe; the Buda industry at Vertessz�ll�s, Hungary; and the Zhoukoudian in China. These may reflect a culture different from the Acheulian or simply tool sets having a different function. Infrequent and or crudely flaked bifaces also appear at some non-Acheulian sites such as the African Developed Oldowan and Clactonian.
Seafaring implied, Boa Lesa, Flores, 840�80,000 BP.[Lubby�s emphasis]
Use of soft hammer (bone, antler) for flaking, Boxgrove, 500,000 BP.

Earliest evidence of spears, Sch�ningen, Germany; Clacton, England,.400,000 BP; Lehringen, 120,000 BP; possibly Bilzingsleben 300,000 BP.
Economic Subsistence Mode: Large, medium and small game hunting and continued scavenging and gathering.

Paleontology: This period saw the evolution of Homo erectus and Homo ergaster, an African variant of Homo erectus, who were associated with Mode II technology. Apparently, Homo heidelbergensis evolved from Homo ergaster/erectus in Africa and Europe, and, in turn, appears to have evolved into Homo sapiens archaicus and neanderthalis.

Tool Characteristics: Mode II Acheulian industry. Characterized by bifaces (also called 'handaxes'). Assemblages are known from 1.4 MYA at Peninj and Konso-Gardula and appear to have spread out of Africa into the Middle East, China and eventually Europe. Based originally on numerous bifaces found at the site of St. Acheul, France, the term is applied to stone assemblages with large bifacially flaked tools, including bifacial 'handaxes', cleavers and picks. The evolution appears to move from Oldowan core choppers to Early Acheulian 2-dimensional bifaces to elegantly 3-D symmetrical handaxes in later Acheulian periods.

So-called 'Chopper-Chopping Tool' (CCC) industries are also known from the same time period throughout Africa, Asia and Europe. Examples include the Clactonian of northern Europe; the Buda industry at Vertessz�ll�s, Hungary; and the Zhoukoudian in China. These may reflect a culture different from the Acheulian or simply tool sets having a different function. Infrequent and or crudely flaked bifaces also appear at some non-Acheulian sites such as the African Developed Oldowan and Clactonian.

Seafaring implied, Boa Lesa, Flores, 840�80,000 BP.(moderator's emphasis)
Use of soft hammer (bone, antler) for flaking, Boxgrove, 500,000 BP.
Earliest evidence of spears, Sch�ningen, Germany; Clacton, England,
400,000 BP; Lehringen, 120,000 BP; possibly Bilzingsleben 300,000 BP.
Economic Subsistence Mode: Large, medium and small game hunting and continued scavenging and gathering.

What seems to be developing is an argument that demonstrates proof that h. floresiensis is an new species by producing wrist evidence that suggests affinities with hominid species (australopithecines and chimpanzees) that are not associated with the production of knapped stone tools.  Of course a great deal of detailed research remains to be done by the principles involved in this debate.  However, it is very interesting to weigh the new wrist bone evidence against the type of stone lithics technology found in association with h. floresiensis in Liang Bua cave.  The Liang Bua lithic tools do not appear at causal glance to be from the Oldowan horizon.

Also note the finding under homo erectus �seafaring implied, Boa Lesa, Flores, 840�80,000 BP.� (supra)  There is already archaeological and physical anthropological evidence of h. erectus and Archeulian lithics from sites on the island of Flores itself.  This evidence dates to strata very close to the h. floresiensis fossil and tool assemblage, and in fact, may overlap.  The date range of the lithics found in association with h. floresiensis is 94,000 to 18,000 year BCE (see post 17).  It would be nice to take a very close look at the stratigraphic sequence recorded from the Liang Bua cave and compare it against other archaeological sites on Flores.

Very Best Regards,

Lubby