A tiny human relative called the Hobbit, or Homo floresiensis, may have evolved from a larger ancestor that shrunk upon arriving on the Indonesian island of Flores, a new fossil suggests
may have evolved from a larger ancestor that shrunk upon arriving on the Indonesian island of Flores, a new fossil suggestsThe humerus fragment discovered at Mata Menge on the Indonesian island of Flores is shown at the same scale as thean oddball member of the human family that lived as recently as 60,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores, is coming into focus. With its miniature body and brain and relatively big feet,came to be known as the hobbit.
This female skeleton, dubbed LB1, is a “type specimen,” or representative of the species. From LB1, scientists estimate the individual stood about three feet, six inches tall, with a grapefruit-size brain and feet that were more than half the length of their thighbones. Along with bones from other individuals found in the cave, dating to between about 100,000 and 60,000 years ago, LB1 showed that the hobbit skull had characteristics more like our close human relative.
For years, debate has centered around the origin of this population. Researchers have argued about whether it arose from an already small, primitive early human, such asthat shrunk under the pressures of island life. A third argument that was taken off the evolutionary table was that these were modern humans with a condition that caused dwarfism., about 70 kilometers from the Liang Bua site on Flores.
“Having postcranial bones is important to infer things like body size because this is not easy to infer from teeth of cranial bones,” says Aida Gómez-Robles, an anthropologist at University College London, who wasn’t involved in the new study. “But at the same time, what have found is a fragment of a humerus that doesn’t have the ends.”
The hope is that more complete postcranial bones dating back even further in time, closer to the hypothetical emergence of
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