SEAArch - The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog » homo floresiensis

New study suggests H. floresiensis is a deformed human

noelbynature — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:39:17 +0000

Once again reviving the debate over the nature of the Flores hominid, a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences compares skull scans from various samples, including microcephalic humans and other hominids, and suggest that the H. floresiensis is a microcephalic human rather than a separate species.

Homo floresiensis skull, wikicommons

Taking the measure of a hobbit
Science News, 08 August 2011

‘Hobbit’ just a deformed human?
Nature, 08 August 2011

Craniometric ratios of microcephaly and LB1, Homo floresiensis, using MRI and endocasts
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 08 August 2011
doi:10.1073/pnas.1105585108

The designation of Homo floresiensis as a new species derived from an ancient population is controversial, because the type specimen, LB1, might represent a pathological microcephalic modern Homo sapiens. Accordingly, two specific craniometric ratios (relative frontal breadth and cerebellar protrusion) were ascertained in 21 microcephalic infants and children by using MRI. Data on 118 age-equivalent control (normocephalic) subjects were collected for comparative purposes. In addition, the same craniometric ratios were determined on the endocasts of 10 microcephalic individuals, 79 normal controls (anatomically modern humans), and 17 Homo erectus specimens. These ratios were then compared with those of two LB1 endocasts. The findings showed that the calculated cerebral/cerebellar ratios of the LB1 endocast [Falk D, et al. (2007) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:2513â€“2518] fall outside the range of living normocephalic individuals. The ratios derived from two LB1 endocasts also fall largely outside the range of modern normal human and H. erectus endocasts and within the range of microcephalic endocasts. The findings support but do not prove the contention that LB1 represents a pathological microcephalic Homo sapiens rather than a new species, (i.e., H. floresiensis).

Another attempt to extract Hobbit DNA

noelbynature — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:08:54 +0000

Researchers from the University of Adelaide are planning a new attempt to extract DNA from the teeth of the Homo floresiensis that, if successful, might just be able to put the debate over whether the Hobbit is a new species or a diseased human being to rest. Previous attempts have been made, unsuccessfully, but the U of A researchers are hoping to use a different technique to extract DNA which basically consists of drilling a tooth at a lower speed. It remains to be seen if there is any DNA left to be extracted, though. Stay tuned, I guess. With any luck, 2011 might be the year this debate gets put to rest.

Homo floresiensis skull, wikicommons

Researchers to drill for hobbit history
Nature News, 05 January 2011

Scientists are planning an attempt to extract DNA from the ‘hobbit’ Homo floresiensis, the 1-metre-tall extinct distant relative of modern humans that was unearthed in Indonesia, following a study that suggests problems in standard sampling methods in ancient-DNA research could have thwarted previous efforts.

This year, geneticists at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide hope to recover DNA from a roughly 18,000-year-old H. floresiensis tooth, which was excavated in 2009 from the Liang Bua site on the Indonesian island of Flores.

The premolar has been kept cold, and has been handled as little as possible to prevent contamination with modern DNA. But little, if any, of the ancient DNA is likely to have survived the heat and moisture of the tropics, and any that has may be highly fragmented.

The giant stork that lived beside the little hobbit

noelbynature — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 14:29:38 +0000

Science media have been picking up this story the last couple of days of the description of a giant stork fossil that was found on Flores, the home of our favourite hobbit Homo floresiensis. The fossils are described in a paper in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society; the giant stork is estimated to be 1.8 metres in height and are contemporaneous to H. floresiensis which gives us pause for thought – if storks could grow so drastically big in an island setting, why couldn’t have humans grown so drastically small?

Artist's impression from BBC

A new species of giant marabou stork (Aves: Ciconiiformes) from the Pleistocene of Liang Bua, Flores (Indonesia)
MEIJER, H. J. and DUE, R. A. (2010). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 160: 707â€“724. doi: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2010.00616.x

Giant fossil bird found on ‘hobbit’ island of Flores
BBC, 07 December 2010

Abstract:

Fossils of the genus Leptoptilos from the Pleistocene of Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia, belong to a new species of giant marabou stork, Leptoptilos robustus sp. nov. This giant bird, estimated at 1.80 m in length, was similar in dimensions to extant Leptoptilos dubius, except for the tibiotarsus. The thick cortical bone wall of the tibiotarsus and the estimated weight of 16 kg imply a reduced flight capability. Osteological and biometric characters suggest that L. robustus is most closely related to L. dubius. An evolutionary lineage is proposed in which a volant L. dubius-like ancestor in the Middle Pleistocene evolved into the Late Pleistocene L. robustus on Flores, with a concomitant reduction of the ability to fly and an increase in body size. The large body size and terrestrial lifestyle of L. robustus are responses to an unbalanced, insular environment with abundant prey items and a lack of mammalian carnivores, and emphasize the extraordinary nature of the Homo floresiensis fauna.

New study suggests homo floresiensis is an iodine-deficient human?

noelbynature — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 00:38:57 +0000

This story broke a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve been behind posts because of the recent 13th conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists in Berlin. A study in PLoS ONE suggests that the Indonesian hobbits suffer from cretinism rather than being an altogether new species of hominid, by comparing the bones of homo floresiensis, normal humans, chimpanzees and cretins.

Post-Cranial Skeletons of Hypothyroid Cretins Show a Similar Anatomical Mosaic as Homo floresiensis
PLoS ONE, 2010
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0013018

‘Hobbit’ Was an Iodine-Deficient Human, Not Another Species, New Study Suggests
Science Daily, 28 September 2010

Abstract:

Human remains, some as recent as 15 thousand years, from Liang Bua (LB) on the Indonesian island of Flores have been attributed to a new species, Homo floresiensis. The definition includes a mosaic of features, some like modern humans (hence derived: genus Homo), some like modern apes and australopithecines (hence primitive: not species sapiens), and some unique (hence new species: floresiensis). Conversely, because only modern humans (H. sapiens) are known in this region in the last 40 thousand years, these individuals have also been suggested to be genetic human dwarfs. Such dwarfs resemble small humans and do not show the mosaic combination of the most complete individuals, LB1 and LB6, so this idea has been largely dismissed. We have previously shown that some features of the cranium of hypothyroid cretins are like those of LB1. Here we examine cretin postcrania to see if they show anatomical mosaics like H. floresiensis. We find that hypothyroid cretins share at least 10 postcranial features with Homo floresiensis and unaffected humans not found in apes (or australopithecines when materials permit). They share with H. floresiensis, modern apes and australopithecines at least 11 postcranial features not found in unaffected humans. They share with H. floresiensis, at least 8 features not found in apes, australopithecines or unaffected humans. Sixteen features can be rendered metrically and multivariate analyses demonstrate that H. floresiensis co-locates with cretins, both being markedly separate from humans and chimpanzees (P<0.001: from analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) over all variables, ANOSIM, global R>0.999). We therefore conclude that LB1 and LB6, at least, are, most likely, endemic cretins from a population of unaffected Homo sapiens. This is consistent with recent hypothyroid endemic cretinism throughout Indonesia, including the nearby island of Bali.

Hobbit travels to the land of the rising sun

noelbynature — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:27:23 +0000

An exhibition on the Flores hominid is on show at Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science.

UOW hobbit makes it big in Japan
Illawara Mercury, 27 April 2010

For the first time, people in Japan have the chance to come face to face with the human “hobbit”, a miniature species first discovered by University of Wollongong and Indonesian researchers in 2004.

And we could soon see a replica in the Illawarra.

The Homo floresiensis exhibit in Tokyo includes an anatomically correct model of the hobbit, a 1.1m tall female adult who existed on the Indonesian island of Flores until about 18,000 years ago.

Other discoveries exhibited at the National Museum of Nature and Science (NMNS) include a giant rat, similar in size to a household cat.

The reconstruction involved careful measurements of skeletal elements and the combined efforts of palaeoanthropologists, anatomists and artists.

The original findings were made during a nine-year period from 2001 to 2005 and 2007 to 2010, according to UOW professor in archaeology Mike Morwood.

The Hobbit debate rages on

noelbynature — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:02:15 +0000

Debate about the hobbit continues at the recent American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting.

Hobbit debate goes out on some limbs
Science News, 19 April 2010

This new twist in the hobbit controversy follows the March 17 online publication of a paper in Nature concluding that hominids reached Flores by 1 million years ago. Excavations on Flores yielded stone tools from sediment dating to that time, reported Adam Brumm of the University of Wollongong in Australia.

Brumm previously uncovered 800,000-year-old stone artifacts on Flores (SN: 6/3/06, p. 341). He now suspects hominids reached the island as early as 2 million years ago.

Brummâ€™s contention has been challenged by colleagues who believe natural processes may have moved the artifacts from younger to older sediment layers.

Earthquakes and flooding are two of many possible ways in which stone artifacts could have been moved on Flores, noted James Phillips of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Indonesian 'hobbit' challenges evolutionary theory

noelbynature — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:05:59 +0000

An update on the hobbit debate; Mike Morwood’s team is now expanding the search for the hobbit in the surrounding regions.

photo credit: Rosino

Indonesian ‘hobbit’ challenges evolutionary theory
AP, via Jakarta Post, 07 March 2010

The feud has played out in top scientific journals. But a growing consensus has emerged among experts on human origin that this is indeed a separate and primitive species that lived in relatively modern times – 17,000 to 100,000 years ago. The November issue of the highly respected Journal of Human Evolution was dedicated to the Flores findings and included a dozen studies that supported the hobbit as a new species.

…

The mounting evidence has prompted Australian archaeologist Mike Morwood and his team to expand their research to the Soa Basin on Flores and the nearby Indonesian island of Sulawesi to answer several questions: Who were the hobbit’s ancestors? Where did they come from? What were their interactions, if any, with the modern humans of the time? Why are they extinct?

Hobbits went Out of Africa a million years earlier?

noelbynature — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:45:20 +0000

The Observer’s Science Editor has an update on the latest developments in Hobbit research – and how they might have been the first species out of Africa than the homo erectus. Of course, the usual caveats apply: future research will probably confirm or refute this hypothesis.

photo credit: Rosino

How a hobbit is rewriting the history of the human race
The Observer, 21 February 2010

…

According to this version of events, Homo erectus evolved from apemen predecessors, such as Australopithecus africanus, in Africa and then headed off around the Old World more than a million years ago, armed with a great physique and a modest intellect. These allowed it to settle across Africa, Asia and Europe. This diaspora was then followed by a second wave of humans â€“ our own species, Homo sapiens â€“ which emerged from Africa 100,000 years ago and took over the planet, replacing all pockets of its predecessors it encountered.

Now a far more complex picture is emerging. Ancient apemen, who might have been thought to lack the nous for global conquest, appear to have done the trick almost a million years earlier. One of the major tenets of human evolution, the story of our world conquest, is now urgently in need of revision.

As to the fate of H. floresiensis, that is unclear. The species disappears abruptly from the archaeological record 17,000 years ago. But why? They had apparently survived quite happily on the island for more than a million years. So what did for them in the end?

Explaining the hobbit's small brain

noelbynature — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:08:44 +0000

A new paper published in BMC Biology may possibly reconcile the small size of the Hobbit’s brain with tool use – one of the arguments against the hobbit being a new species as it is assumed that for something as sophisticated as tool use – you’d need a pretty big brain. The study by Montgomery et al looked at the brain and body size of over 50 primate species indicate that while both brain and body size tend to grow with time, there is sufficient evidence to show that the opposite is also true, ie, shrinkage also does occur in some cases. So it looks like that it is possible for the Hobbit to have evolved to be smaller, thus strengthening the hypothesis that it’s a new species rather than a deformed human.

photo credit: Ryan Somma

Reconstructing the ups and downs of primate brain evolution: implications for adaptive hypotheses and Homo floresiensis
BMC Biology 2010, 8:9doi:10.1186/1741-7007-8-9

Is the Hobbit’s Brain Unfeasibly Small?
Science Daily, 27 January 2010

Reduced Brain Size of Homo floresiensis Hints at Her Likely Ancestors
Anthropology.net, 28 January 2010

Reconstructing the ups and downs of primate brain evolution: implications for adaptive hypotheses and Homo floresiensis

Background
Brain size is a key adaptive trait. It is often assumed that increasing brain size was a general evolutionary trend in primates, yet recent fossil discoveries have documented brain size decreases in some lineages, raising the question of how general a trend there was for brains to increase in mass over evolutionary time. We present the first systematic phylogenetic analysis designed to answer this question.

Results
We performed ancestral state reconstructions of three traits (absolute brain mass, absolute body mass, relative brain mass) using 37 extant and 23 extinct primate species and three approaches to ancestral state reconstruction: parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian Markov-chain Monte Carlo. Both absolute and relative brain mass generally increased over evolutionary time, but body mass did not. Nevertheless both absolute and relative brain mass decreased along several branches. Applying these results to the contentious case of Homo floresiensis, we find a number of scenarios under which the proposed evolution of the Homo floresiensis brain appears to be plausible, dependent on body mass and phylogenetic position.

Conclusions
Our results confirm that brain expansion began early in primate evolution and show that increases occurred in all major clades. Only in terms of an increase in absolute mass does the human lineage appear particularly striking, with both the rate of proportional change in mass and relative brain size having episodes of greater expansion elsewhere on the primate phylogeny. However, decreases in brain mass also occurred along branches in all major clades, and we conclude that, while selection has acted to enlarge primate brains, in some lineages this trend has been reversed. Further analyses of the phylogenetic position of Homo floresiensis and better body mass estimates are required to confirm the plausibility of the evolution of its small brain mass. We find that for our dataset the Bayesian analysis for ancestral state reconstruction is least affected by inclusion of fossil data suggesting that this approach might be preferable for future studies on other taxa with a poor fossil record.

Is it official now? Hobbits as a new species.

noelbynature — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:15:53 +0000

I got the press release last week but I was out in the field and unable to look through the material, but most of the major science news sites have published what is another confirmation about the Hobbit’s status as a new species, rather than a deformed human relation. A new study to be published in Significance suggests once again that the Hobbit skeleton should be classified as a new species rather. If the journal Significance doesn’t ring a bell, it’s also because it’s a statistics journal by the Royal Statistical Society. I’m publishing here the press release by Wiley, along with links to the other news stories that came out over the weekend. Check out all the hobbit news that has come out on SEAArch here.

photo credit: Ryan Somma

â€œThe geometry of hobbits: Homo floresiensis and human evolution.â€ William Jungers and Karen Baab. Significance; Published Online: November 19, 2009 (DOI: 10.1111/j.1740-9713.2009.00389.x); Print Issue Date: December 2009.

Indonesian ‘hobbits’ are a separate species
The Telegraph, 19 November 2009

‘Hobbits’ Are a New Human Species, According to Statistical Analysis of Fossils
Science Daily, 19 November 2009

The hobbit emerges as a distinct human relative, study contends
Medill Reports, 19 November 2009

Hobbits are indeed a separate species, said researchers
The Prancing Papio, 21 November 2009

â€œHobbitsâ€ are a New Human Species â€“ According to the Statistical Analysis of Fossils

Homo floresiensis Not Diseased Sub-Population of Healthy Humans

Researchers from Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York have confirmed that Homo floresiensis is a genuine ancient human species and not a descendant of healthy humans dwarfed by disease. Using statistical analysis on skeletal remains of a well-preserved female specimen, researchers determined the â€œhobbitâ€ to be a distinct species and not a genetically flawed version of modern humans. Details of the study appear in the December issue of Significance, the magazine of the Royal Statistical Society, published by Wiley-Blackwell.

In 2003 Australian and Indonesian scientists discovered small-bodied, small-brained, hominin (human-like) fossils on the remote island of Flores in the Indonesian archipelago. This discovery of a new human species called Homo floresiensis has spawned much debate with some researchers claiming that the small creatures are really modern humans whose tiny head and brain are the result of a medical condition called microcephaly.

Researchers William Jungers, Ph.D., and Karen Baab, Ph.D. studied the skeletal remains of a female (LB1), nicknamed â€œLittle Lady of Floresâ€ or â€œFloâ€ to confirm the evolutionary path of the hobbit species. The specimen was remarkably complete and included skull, jaw, arms, legs, hands, and feet that provided researchers with integrated information from an individual fossil.

The cranial capacity of LB1 was just over 400 cm, making it more similar to the brains of a chimpanzee or bipedal â€œape-menâ€ of East and South Africa. The skull and jawbone features are much more primitive looking than any normal modern human. Statistical analysis of skull shapes show modern humans cluster together in one group, microcephalic humans in another and the hobbit along with ancient hominins in a third.

Due to the relative completeness of fossil remains for LB1, the scientists were able to reconstruct a reliable body design that was unlike any modern human. The thigh bone and shin bone of LB1 are much shorter than modern humans including Central African pygmies, South African KhoeSan (formerly known as â€˜bushmenâ€) and â€œnegritoâ€ pygmies from the Andaman Islands and the Philippines. Some researchers speculate this could represent an evolutionary reversal correlated with â€œisland dwarfing.â€ â€œIt is difficult to believe an evolutionary change would lead to less economical movement,â€ said Dr. Jungers. â€œIt makes little sense that this species re-evolved shorter thighs and legs because long hind limbs improve bipedal walking. We suspect that these are primitive retentions instead.â€

Further analysis of the remains using a regression equation developed by Dr. Jungers indicates that LB1 was approximately 106 cm tall (3 feet, 6 inches)â€”far smaller than the modern pygmies whose adults grow to less than 150 cm (4 feet, 11 inches). A scatterplot depicts LB1 far outside the range of Southeast Asian and African pygmies in both absolute height and body mass indices. â€œAttempts to dismiss the hobbits as pathological people have failed repeatedly because the medical diagnoses of dwarfing syndromes and microcephaly bear no resemblance to the unique anatomy of Homo floresiensis,â€ noted Dr. Baab.