Homo floresiensis : Unraveling tiny ancient humans
In the year 2004 , a new species of human termed “homo floresiensis” was discovered from Liang Bua Cave on the island of Flores which lived on the remote Indonesian island of Flores just 18,000 years ago. Homo floresiensis were tiny individuals ,roughly just about one meter in height , with grapefruit-sized skulls. These little humans , nicknamed ‘hobbits’, made tools, hunted tiny elephants and lived at the same time as modern humans who were colonizing the area. This, in combination with the unusually small stature and brain size of H. floresiensis, led to huge debate among the great brains in the field and also in general public. Many were of the opinion that the new fossil discovered was infact a consequence of some pathological condition,rather than a new human species. Since then decent amount of progress had been made and recently two back to papers ( and one adorning the cover ) appeared in Nature journal of MAY 7 issue.These two articles Jungers and colleagues and by Weston and Lister, together with a special online issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, will go a long way in providing valuable insights regarding this astonishing tiny ancient human.
Its some outstanding work by Jungers et al reveals some valuable secrets about the fascinating feet of homo floresiensis, which shared similarities with modern humans like : the big toe is aligned with the other toes but differ significantly in the length. Its approximate length ranges around 20 cm, is much longer than one would find in any person of that stature. The other important features of these hobbits include long, curved and robust lateral toes; a short big toe; and a weight-bearing process on a crucial bone.All these things suggest that that the foot of H. floresiensis was capable of effective walking.
“Arches are the hallmark of a modern human foot,” .”This is another strong piece of the evidence that the “hobbit” was not like us.”– Harcourt-Smith
According to William Jungers, Chairman of the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University Medical Center, and an author on the study. “H. floresiensis is either an island-dwarfed descendant of H. erectus that not only underwent body-size reduction but also extensive evolutionary reversals, or, as our analysis suggests, it represents a new species full of primitive retentions from an ancestor that dispersed out of Africa much earlier than anyone would have predicted. Either way, the implications for human evolution are profound.” More fossils are required to understand better about these fascinating tiny ancient humans .
References:
1) Insular dwarfism in hippos and a model for brain size reduction in Homo floresiensis.
Weston EM, Lister AM.
Nature. 2009 May 7;459(7243):85-8.
2) The foot of Homo floresiensis.
Jungers WL, Harcourt-Smith WE, Wunderlich RE, Tocheri MW, Larson SG, Sutikna T, Due RA, Morwood MJ.
Nature. 2009 May 7;459(7243):81-4.
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