Hobbits of Indonesia were different human species
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 7:01pm BST 20/09/2007
Three old bones from a left wrist offer a new twist in the long
running debate about the so called hobbits of Indonesia, suggesting they were
indeed a small and different kind of human species, rather than modern humans
with a growth disorder.
Artist impression of a hobbit of Indonesia Three years ago,
Prof Mike Morwood, of the University of New England, in Armidale, Australia,
and colleagues made headlines worldwide when they announced the discovery of
18,000-year-old remains of Homo floresiensis in the Liang Bua Cave on the
Indonesian island of Flores.
The human evolutionary cousin, nicknamed the hobbit after the diminutive people
in JRR Tolkein's Lord Of The Rings, stood only three foot tall and was thought
to be an entirely new species of human, with a brain about the size of a
chimpanzee's.
Ever since there has been debate whether or not the bones were actually from
pygmies - even today there are pygmies on the island - and not a new species of
human that lived between 120,000 and 10,000 years ago. One idea is that they
suffered from microcephaly, a disorder that limits brain growth.
Today in the journal Science an analysis of three wrist bones of one of the
fossil specimens (called LB1) led by Matthew Tocheri of the Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, and including Prof Morwood and colleagues in Indonesia
and America shows that the bones are primitive and shaped differently compared
to both the wrist bones of both humans and of Neanderthals, suggesting they do
represent a different kind of human.
The Hobbit's wrist is basically indistinguishable from an African ape -
nothing at all like that seen in modern humans and Neanderthals.
Using cutting-edge 3D technology the team shows how there are big differences
between the wrist bones of human - whether dwarf, normal or giant - and
nonhuman primates, so the bones offer a powerful way to distinguish different
species.
advertisement
<SCRIPT language="JavaScript1.1"
SRC="http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/adj/N1084.telegraph.zenith/B2480368.2;abr=!ie;sz=300x250;click=http://ads.telegraph.co.uk/event.ng/Type%3dclick%26FlightID%3d22379%26AdID%3d27159%26TargetID%3d5044%26Redirect%3d;ord=sscdAk,bdphaIciqyos?"></SCRIPT>
"This study offers one of the most striking confirmations of the original
interpretation of the hobbit as an island remnant of one of the oldest human
migrations to Asia," said Tocheri.
"Before I saw these wrist bones, I had no definitive opinion regarding the
hobbit debates," said Tocheri. "But these hobbit wrist bones do not look
anything like those of modern humans. They're not even close."
For example, the human trapezoid is boot-shaped, while in LB1 the same bone
is wedge-shaped. Also, the LB1 wrist bones are closer in shape to living
african apes and earlier fossil species like australopithecus and Homo habilis.
The team believes these differences imply that LB1has retained
characteristics of a primitive wrist and thus represents a human lineage that
appeared before the modern wrist evolved with Homo sapiens and the
Neanderthals, who share an ancestor that lived between 0.5 and one million
years ago.
The distinctive shapes of wrist bones form during the first trimester of
pregnancy while most growth disorders do not begin to affect the skeleton until
well after that time. Thus, they argue, the hobbits are the descendants of an
ancestor that had migrated out of Africa and branched off the human family tree
before the branches that include modern humans, their cousins the Neanderthals
and their last common ancestor.
LB1 was also found with stone flaking technology comparable to that found in
Africa, this provides additional support for the idea that the earliest of our
ancestors to use and make stone tools retained a primitive kind of wrist, with
the wrist of modern humans and Neanderthals having evolved between 1.8 and 0.8
million years ago to help them make and use tools better.
"Other work on the Liang Bua hominid material is in progress on the LB1
hands, feet, teeth and pelvis - all of which tell a similar story," Prof
Morwood told The Daily Telegraph. "Homo floresiensis represents a very old,
small-bodied, small-brained hominid lineage that dispersed out of Africa before
the appearance of large bodied, large brained Homo erectus."
Another member of the team that announced the hobbit, Prof Richard "Bert"
Roberts of the University of Wollongong, added: "To my mind, it's yet another
piece of strong evidence in support of the 'hobbit' having an ancient lineage -
not something closely related to modern humans, let alone a diseased individual
of our species.
"Importantly, this new study continues to undermine claims that the 'hobbit'
suffered from a medical condition known as microcephaly - that is, a modern
human with an abnormally small brain - by looking at a part of the anatomy far
removed from the head: namely, the wrist bones.
"Microcephalics do not have unusually shaped wrist bones, but the hobbit does
- and the features of the wrist bones are echoed in the primitive traits seen
in many other parts of the skeleton, including the skull, which has been almost
the sole focus of attention of the pro-microcephaly camp."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/09/20/scihobbit120.xml
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
blog: http://mediacare.blogspot.com
---------------------------------
Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo!
FareChase.
