Oki, menarik posting-nya, saya yakin ini akan memerlukan konfirmasi penelitian
lanjutan. Masa ilmuwan Indonesia tidak ada yang ikut, kok di artikelnya disebut ada
ilmuwan Indonesia dan Australia, hanya tak disebutkan namanya yang Indonesia.
Kenapa memerlukan konfirmasi penelitian lanjutan ? Sebab ada beberapa hal dari teori
yang dikemukakan atas penemuan ini yang rasanya akan bertentangan dengan pengetahuan
paleo-antropologi maupun paleo-vertebrata saat ini.
"Hobbit" mengingatkan saya ke cerita2 Harry Potter, memang manusia kerdil. Dalam
ekologi ada teori yang disebut "biogeografi pulau" yang intinya menyebut bahwa ukuran
dan jumlah spesies hewan akan mengecil/membesar mengikuti kecil/besarnya pulau (jadi
berbanding lurus). "Hobbit" akan cocok dengan ini, walaupun adanya komodo dan tikus
besar terasa bertentangan (kecuali kalau komodo dan tikus besar memang hewan primitif
yang endemik - berarti mereka kelak akan mengecil ukurannya kalau menerapkan teori
evolusi / spesiasi karena kendala ekologi).
Yang agak berat adalah teori bahwa "Hobbit" ini peralihan dari Homo erectus Jawa yang
mengerdil karena ukuran pulau. Belum ada cerita bahwa Homo erectus bermigrasi ke Nusa
Tenggara, yang ada adalah Homo wadjakensis yang umurnya lebih muda dari Homo erectus,
sebab leluhur orang2 Aborigin di Australia adalah Homo wadjakensis yang ukurannya
besar, yang bermigrasi ke Australia melalui land bridges sepanjang Nusa Tenggara
termasuk Flores dan paparan Sahul yang saat itu kering di zaman es, apakah mereka di
tengah jalan berubah jadi "Hobbit" di Flores, kenapa dong mereka membesar lagi di
Aborigin Australia, lucu kan ?
Pygmy stegodon, tak hanya ditemukan di Flores, Sartono (1969) pernah menyebutkan
stegodon kerdil di Timor, dan Sartono (1979) pernah menyebutkan stegodon kerdil di
Sumba. Artinya, stegodon pun bisa bermigrasi, masa "Hobbit" tak bisa, atau belum
ditemukan saja fosil2nya di pulau2 Nusa Tenggara lain. Bahkan Pak Zaim pernah menyebut
stegodon kerdil di Sumedang (entah saat itu Sumedang merupakan pulau atau daratan
besar harus dilihat lagi), di endapan2 Kaliwangu di Jawa Tengah Utara pun ditemukan
fosil2 stegodon kecil ini. Artinya migrasi vertebrata adalah masalah biasa, terlepas
dari apakah mereka kena spesiasi biogeografi pulau atau tidak.
Kemudian, ukuran otak yang lebih kecil dari simpanse tetapi kemampuannya sebanding
dengan katakanlah manusia purba menarik sekali untuk dikaji sebab ini menyalahi hukum
linier dalam paleoantropologi bahwa semakin besar volume otak semakin cerdas, artinya
kalau Hobbit ukuran otaknya tak lebih besar dari otak simpanse maka kemampuannya tak
akan lebih besar dari simpanse, tetapi kenyataannya kan lain bukan ? Makanya menarik
untuk dikaji lebih jauh. Kalau kemampuan sudah ada, lalu tiba2 otaknya mengecil karena
biogeografi pulau, tetapi kemampuannya tak ikut berkurang, nah ini juga menarik secara
fisiologi.
Kelihatannya, akan lebih cocok (dengan pengetahuan paleo-antropologi dan vertebrata
sekarang), kalau berteori bahwa "Hobbit" bukan evolusi dari Homo erectus maupun Homo
wadjakensis, memang ia hominid endemik yang sudah lama tinggal di situ. Bukankah di
wilayah Wallacea ini banyak fauna-flora yang endemik ? Sekedar pendapat...Anyway, ini
menarik, hanya jelas butuh elaborasi.
Salam,
awang
"Musakti, Oki" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
(Koq nggak kedengaran ada ilmuwan Indonesia yang ikut di tim ini ya...?)
Menarik, disini disebutkan bahwa salah satu survival strategy untuk mengatasi kondisi
yang minim resources adalah dengan ‘mengecilkan diri’.
Oki
- - - - - - - - -
Found - the newest members of the human family
By Deborah Smith
October 29, 2004
A previously unknown species of miniature human barely a metre tall, who hunted pygmy
elephants and giant rats, lived on Australia's doorstep until at least 13,000 years
ago.
Australian and Indonesian scientists have unearthed a near-complete skeleton of a
female member of the species, nicknamed Hobbit, in a cave on the remote Indonesian
island of Flores, 600 kilometres east of Bali.
The archaic humans co-existed for tens of thousands of years with our own species and
might have died out only 500 years ago. Archaeologist and team member Mike Morwood,
from the University of New England, said they were about the size of a modern
three-year-old.
"They weighed around 25 kilograms and had a brain smaller than most chimpanzees,"
Professor Morwood said. "Even so, they used fire and made sophisticated stone tools.
Despite tiny brains, these little humans almost certainly had language."
The discovery of the species, published today in the journal Nature, is being hailed
as one of the most important in a century in the study of human origins. Until now, it
had been thought our only recent cousins were the Neanderthals in Europe, who died out
about 30,000 years ago.
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"The find is startling," said another team member, Dr Robert Foley, of the University
of Cambridge. "It is breathtaking to think that such a different species of hominin
existed so recently."
Named Homo floresiensis, it is the smallest species of human ever found. It is the
first that overlapped recently with our species to have been discovered since
Neanderthal remains were found in the 1800s.
The island the small humans lived on, Flores, was a "lost world" inhabited by
creatures as strange as they were - giant rats and giant lizards, komodo dragons, and
primitive dwarf elephants that were extinct elsewhere.
Bones including the skull, jaw, pelvis and leg of a 30-year-old woman were uncovered
last year in Liang Bua cave on Flores and dated to about 18,000 years old.
More recently, the team has uncovered her arm bones as well remains from six other
little people, who lived in the cave from about 95,000 years ago to 13,000 years ago.
The existence of the species will prompt a "major rethink" of how humans evolved,
according to another on the team, Peter Brown, of the University of New England.
"The most remarkable thing is that someone with that sort of small brain size was
behaving in many ways like a modern human in terms of hunting and the stone tools they
used," he said.
Professor Morwood said the little people were thought to have evolved from larger
archaic humans, Homo erectus, who managed to sail across to Flores from Java about
800,000 years ago.
They evolved into dwarfs, like the elephants on the island, because small creatures
had a better chance of survival on a remote island where there was little food and no
major predators.
Homo erectus spread from Africa to Asia more than a million years ago, but were
eventually replaced by our species, Homo sapiens, who left Africa about 120,000 years
ago, according to the leading theory of human movement.
The little Homo floresiensis species survived on Flores long after Homo sapiens had
moved into the region and begun to colonise Australia and New Guinea 50,000 years ago.
Bert Roberts, of the University of Wollongong, whose team carried out the dating, said
there were a lot of detailed folk tales on Flores about little people.
"These stories suggest there may be more than a grain of truth to the idea that they
were still living on Flores up until the Dutch arrived in the 1500s," Professor
Roberts said. "The stories suggest they lived in caves. The villagers would leave
gourds with food out for them to eat, but legend has it these were the guests from
hell. They'd eat everything, including the gourds."
It is 110 years since the last human species was discovered in South-East Asia - the
700,000-year-old Homo erectus Java man specimen.
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