[wordup] "Hobbit" Discovered: Tiny Human Ancestor Found in Asia

[Adam Shand]

From:  
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/ 
1027_041027_homo_floresiensis.html
More:  
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/photogalleries/ 
homo_floresiensis/
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"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 (See 
pictures). 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.

  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 
helped sponsor the research.

  "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 Miraz?n 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."