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Creation Takes a Side Trip
Friday, March 4, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m.
Tiny ancestor had advanced brain
By Guy Gugliotta
The Washington Post
IRA BLOCK / AP, 2004
Thomas Sutikna of the Indonesian Center for Archaeology in Jakarta holds the skull that scientists believe represents a new human species, Homo floresiensis, found on the Indonesian island of Flores.
It's not the size of the brain that matters. It's the way it's arranged. That's the conclusion of researchers studying the skull of a tiny, hobbitlike human ancestor who lived on a remote Indonesian island 18,000 years ago.
Researchers reported yesterday that the hobbit's grapefruit-sized brain had sophisticated characteristics found only in the brains of modern humans. They said the findings offered further evidence that the tiny hunter discovered last year was a unique primitive species that coexisted with modern humans long after its contemporaries were believed to have died out.
"It's remarkable," said Florida State University paleoneurologist Dean Falk, leader of the team that studied the skull. "I had a lot of predetermined ideas. I thought we were going to be looking at a chimpanzee skull, but this has advanced features that I've not seen in anything this size."
Falk's research, published in the online edition of the journal Science, was conducted with the cooperation of the Australian-led team that found the fossil, and at the behest of the National Geographic Society, which paid for the study.
The new research, however, failed to still skeptics who have dismissed the hobbit as a Pygmylike modern human, or a modern human afflicted with a deformity known as microcephaly — a small head and brain.
Tools and artifacts found with the skull "were made by [fully competent] modern humans," said paleoanthropologist John Phillips of the University of Illinois and Chicago's Field Museum. "This individual could not mentally have made them."
Some researchers have expressed optimism that the controversy can be cleared up by retrieving ancient DNA from some of the hair and bones, which could better illuminate the hobbits' relationship to modern humans. The original team also plans to return to the excavation site this summer to hunt for more fossils.
The fossil was discovered in a limestone cave on Indonesia's Flores island, which lies immediately east of the so-called Wallace Line dividing islands once connected to Australia and Asia from those, like Flores, that remained isolated for millions of years.
The team, led by Michael Morwood, of Australia's University of New England, estimated the fossil was 18,000 years old, meaning it had survived long after modern humans appeared about 150,000 years ago and long after the extinction around 30,000 years ago of Neandertals, the last known archaic human.
The team suggested that the hobbit exemplified the "island rule" on a human scale: that isolated islands with limited resources and no natural predators cause large animals to become smaller, while small animals become larger. Prehistoric Flores is known to have been populated by both miniature elephants and giant Komodo dragon lizards.
The team found remains of seven tiny people, including one nearly complete skull of a 30-year-old woman. They dubbed the fossils homo floresiensis, but they quickly acquired the nickname hobbit after the diminutive characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's books.
What astounded anthropologists, however, were the sophisticated stone points and barbs found with the remains. Evolutionary orthodoxy holds that advances in human skills such as tool-making come with increases in brain size, and such weapons never had appeared anywhere before the advent of modern humans.
The hobbit, by contrast, had a 25-cubic-inch brain — comparable to primitive human ancestors who lived 2.5 million to 3 million years ago.
"It was shocking," said Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program. "When you thought about it, you realized that [island adaptation] had happened to other mammals, but I was a doubter."
Details on upcoming DNA tests and excavation were provided by The Dallas Morning News.
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
Tiny ancestor had advanced brain
By Guy Gugliotta
The Washington Post
IRA BLOCK / AP, 2004
Thomas Sutikna of the Indonesian Center for Archaeology in Jakarta holds the skull that scientists believe represents a new human species, Homo floresiensis, found on the Indonesian island of Flores.
It's not the size of the brain that matters. It's the way it's arranged. That's the conclusion of researchers studying the skull of a tiny, hobbitlike human ancestor who lived on a remote Indonesian island 18,000 years ago.
Researchers reported yesterday that the hobbit's grapefruit-sized brain had sophisticated characteristics found only in the brains of modern humans. They said the findings offered further evidence that the tiny hunter discovered last year was a unique primitive species that coexisted with modern humans long after its contemporaries were believed to have died out.
"It's remarkable," said Florida State University paleoneurologist Dean Falk, leader of the team that studied the skull. "I had a lot of predetermined ideas. I thought we were going to be looking at a chimpanzee skull, but this has advanced features that I've not seen in anything this size."
Falk's research, published in the online edition of the journal Science, was conducted with the cooperation of the Australian-led team that found the fossil, and at the behest of the National Geographic Society, which paid for the study.
The new research, however, failed to still skeptics who have dismissed the hobbit as a Pygmylike modern human, or a modern human afflicted with a deformity known as microcephaly — a small head and brain.
Tools and artifacts found with the skull "were made by [fully competent] modern humans," said paleoanthropologist John Phillips of the University of Illinois and Chicago's Field Museum. "This individual could not mentally have made them."
Some researchers have expressed optimism that the controversy can be cleared up by retrieving ancient DNA from some of the hair and bones, which could better illuminate the hobbits' relationship to modern humans. The original team also plans to return to the excavation site this summer to hunt for more fossils.
The fossil was discovered in a limestone cave on Indonesia's Flores island, which lies immediately east of the so-called Wallace Line dividing islands once connected to Australia and Asia from those, like Flores, that remained isolated for millions of years.
The team, led by Michael Morwood, of Australia's University of New England, estimated the fossil was 18,000 years old, meaning it had survived long after modern humans appeared about 150,000 years ago and long after the extinction around 30,000 years ago of Neandertals, the last known archaic human.
The team suggested that the hobbit exemplified the "island rule" on a human scale: that isolated islands with limited resources and no natural predators cause large animals to become smaller, while small animals become larger. Prehistoric Flores is known to have been populated by both miniature elephants and giant Komodo dragon lizards.
The team found remains of seven tiny people, including one nearly complete skull of a 30-year-old woman. They dubbed the fossils homo floresiensis, but they quickly acquired the nickname hobbit after the diminutive characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's books.
What astounded anthropologists, however, were the sophisticated stone points and barbs found with the remains. Evolutionary orthodoxy holds that advances in human skills such as tool-making come with increases in brain size, and such weapons never had appeared anywhere before the advent of modern humans.
The hobbit, by contrast, had a 25-cubic-inch brain — comparable to primitive human ancestors who lived 2.5 million to 3 million years ago.
"It was shocking," said Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program. "When you thought about it, you realized that [island adaptation] had happened to other mammals, but I was a doubter."
Details on upcoming DNA tests and excavation were provided by The Dallas Morning News.
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
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