The 3ft-tall 'hobbit' that rewrites the history of mankind
By Steve Connor and David Keys
28 October 2004
Scientists are celebrating the most important breakthrough in anthropology for a century: the discovery of a new species of apeman.
Described as human "hobbits", the apemen grew no taller than about 3ft and had brains the size of grapefruits. They lived alongside prehistoric man for thousands of years before they finally died out in the dense jungles of Indonesia, in a lost world inhabited by dwarf elephants and giant rats.
Archaeologists excavated the skeletal remains of the little humans from a cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, which has a rich history of exotic animals such as giant lizards and miniature beasts.
Four dating techniques proved the species of "little people" was still living in the region as recently as 13,000 years ago. They may even have survived into more modern times - when they could have been the inspiration for local folktales of shy pygmy apemen who lived in the forest.
Specialists said the new species, officially named Homo floresiensis, or Flores Man, calls into question the very nature of what it means to be human, because of its extraordinary dwarfed features and tiny brain.
A partial skeleton of a female, nicknamed "hobbit" by the research team, has left the specialists in no doubt that Flores Woman represents a new and most unusual member of the human family. The skeleton is 18,000 years old and, although small, is perfectly proportioned.
At first, researchers thought she was a child but closed skull sutures and wear on the teeth suggest that she was about 30 when she died. Further remains of up to seven individuals, some dating to only 13,000 years ago, suggest that there was once a thriving population on the volcanic island.
It is unequivocal evidence that another species of human was living at the same time as our recent ancestors. It suggests the two would almost certainly have come into contact with one another at some time.
The zoologist and writer on evolution Richard Dawkins, professor of scientific understanding at Oxford University, described the find as "the most exciting surprise to hit anthropology for decades".
Professor Mike Morwood of the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia, said he and his team could not believe their discovery when the dating methods pointed to such a recent past. "It is a new species of human who actually lived alongside us, yet were half our size," he said.
They were the height of a three-year-old child, weighed around 25 kilos [4 stone] and had a brain that was smaller than that of most chimpanzees. Even so, they used fire, made stone tools and hunted stegadon - a primitive type of elephant - and giant rats. "We believe their ancestors may have reached the island in bamboo rafts. The clear implication is, despite tiny brains, these little humans were intelligent and almost certainly had language," Professor Morwood said.
Anatomical studies show that Flores Woman had a brain capacity of 380 cubic centimetres, about a third of the volume of a typical modern human and about half the size of Homo erectus, a primitive species that predated Homo sapiens. Until now, most scientists believed that H. erectus died out about half a million years ago.
But the scientists, who describe the find in the journal Nature, believe that Flores Man is a direct descendent of H. erectus, who had migrated to Flores and subsequently evolved into a dwarf form during the thousands of years of genetic isolation on a remote island.
The Darwinian process is called "endemic island dwarfism", seen in many large animals that find themselves trapped on an island, said Professor Peter Brown of the University of New England. "Although a common feature of large mammals in insular environments, this has never been recorded for a human relative before," Professor Brown said.
Flores Woman's partial skeleton was discovered at a large limestone cavern called Liang Bua. Archaeological evidence suggests the cave has been inhabited for about 800,000 years.
Archaeologists have found stone tools in the cave that appear similar to those made by H. erectus at other sites in the world, but with the crucial difference that they are far smaller.
Flores suffered a catastrophic volcanic eruption about 12,000 years ago. After this date there is no further evidence of Homo floresiensis.
27 October 2004 23:14
By Steve Connor and David Keys
28 October 2004
Scientists are celebrating the most important breakthrough in anthropology for a century: the discovery of a new species of apeman.
Described as human "hobbits", the apemen grew no taller than about 3ft and had brains the size of grapefruits. They lived alongside prehistoric man for thousands of years before they finally died out in the dense jungles of Indonesia, in a lost world inhabited by dwarf elephants and giant rats.
Archaeologists excavated the skeletal remains of the little humans from a cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, which has a rich history of exotic animals such as giant lizards and miniature beasts.
Four dating techniques proved the species of "little people" was still living in the region as recently as 13,000 years ago. They may even have survived into more modern times - when they could have been the inspiration for local folktales of shy pygmy apemen who lived in the forest.
Specialists said the new species, officially named Homo floresiensis, or Flores Man, calls into question the very nature of what it means to be human, because of its extraordinary dwarfed features and tiny brain.
A partial skeleton of a female, nicknamed "hobbit" by the research team, has left the specialists in no doubt that Flores Woman represents a new and most unusual member of the human family. The skeleton is 18,000 years old and, although small, is perfectly proportioned.
At first, researchers thought she was a child but closed skull sutures and wear on the teeth suggest that she was about 30 when she died. Further remains of up to seven individuals, some dating to only 13,000 years ago, suggest that there was once a thriving population on the volcanic island.
It is unequivocal evidence that another species of human was living at the same time as our recent ancestors. It suggests the two would almost certainly have come into contact with one another at some time.
The zoologist and writer on evolution Richard Dawkins, professor of scientific understanding at Oxford University, described the find as "the most exciting surprise to hit anthropology for decades".
Professor Mike Morwood of the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia, said he and his team could not believe their discovery when the dating methods pointed to such a recent past. "It is a new species of human who actually lived alongside us, yet were half our size," he said.
They were the height of a three-year-old child, weighed around 25 kilos [4 stone] and had a brain that was smaller than that of most chimpanzees. Even so, they used fire, made stone tools and hunted stegadon - a primitive type of elephant - and giant rats. "We believe their ancestors may have reached the island in bamboo rafts. The clear implication is, despite tiny brains, these little humans were intelligent and almost certainly had language," Professor Morwood said.
Anatomical studies show that Flores Woman had a brain capacity of 380 cubic centimetres, about a third of the volume of a typical modern human and about half the size of Homo erectus, a primitive species that predated Homo sapiens. Until now, most scientists believed that H. erectus died out about half a million years ago.
But the scientists, who describe the find in the journal Nature, believe that Flores Man is a direct descendent of H. erectus, who had migrated to Flores and subsequently evolved into a dwarf form during the thousands of years of genetic isolation on a remote island.
The Darwinian process is called "endemic island dwarfism", seen in many large animals that find themselves trapped on an island, said Professor Peter Brown of the University of New England. "Although a common feature of large mammals in insular environments, this has never been recorded for a human relative before," Professor Brown said.
Flores Woman's partial skeleton was discovered at a large limestone cavern called Liang Bua. Archaeological evidence suggests the cave has been inhabited for about 800,000 years.
Archaeologists have found stone tools in the cave that appear similar to those made by H. erectus at other sites in the world, but with the crucial difference that they are far smaller.
Flores suffered a catastrophic volcanic eruption about 12,000 years ago. After this date there is no further evidence of Homo floresiensis.
27 October 2004 23:14
posted by:
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SF Bay Area
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Re: 3 Foot Tall Humans
Wed, June 21, 2006 - 4:58 AMHas anyone seen any NEW info on whether H. floresiensis is "now" considered a "dwarfed AMHS" with population-wide microcephaly, perhaps brought on by the same selective pressures that produced endemic island dwarfism? I heard something on NPR a while back, but was busy at the time.
I found this article in Geotimes, periodical of the American Geological Institute, suggesting exactly this, BUT the comparison photo appears to show a saggital keel and pronounced brow-ridge- two features common on H. erectus- on the H. floresiensis cranium, despite the australopithecine-like 380ml cranial capacity-....
www.geotimes.org/may05/NN_hobbit.html
Another article on the Bradshaw Foundation's website follows up the suggestion that H. floresiensis shows us dwarfed H. erectus morphology-
www.bradshawfoundation.com/flor....html
Either way, Flores, the home of H. floresiensis, is east of Wallace's Line, which suggests an association with anatomically modern H. sapiens (AMHS) populations from Australia (although tools attributed to H. erectus exist in layers on Flores dated to 800KA and H. sapiens to about 12KA). Some anthropologists suggest the morphology of AMHS skeletons from Australian Aborigines (cranial and post cranial) show features reminiscent of H. erectus, which would fit the assertion of the initial post here that H. floresiensis displays H. erectus morphology.
Personally, I'd like to think that a dwarfed regional variation of H. erectus survived until 14KA (on Flores), and possibly even more recently, but I think the fact of a "continuum of morphology" that is the fossil record starting with H. habilis, shows us that one man's H. erectus may well be another man's... or woman's, AMHS.
Some day..........
Peace
Tom -
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Unsu...
Re: 3 Foot Tall Humans
Wed, June 21, 2006 - 9:28 AMI saw a special on this a couple of weeks ago on Discovery. The current prevailing thought is that the H. floresiensis remains are of an H. erectus woman with microencephaly. They took casts of existing (microencephalic) skulls and compared the cranial capacity with H. floresiensis and found they were the same. It makes much more sense that the Flores skeleton is a "dwarfed" person and not a new species of H. erectus as the scientists who discovered it insisted. I often wonder why/how scientists can claim they have found a NEW species of human without extensive testing to rule out genetic diseases or hoaxes. -
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Re: 3 Foot Tall Humans
Thu, June 22, 2006 - 12:27 AM
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Re: 3 Foot Tall Humans
Thu, June 29, 2006 - 11:53 AMTahiya, you mentioned >>"The current prevailing thought is that the H. floresiensis remains are of an H. erectus woman with microencephaly"<<
There's a lot more skeletal remains, cranial and post-cranial, than "a(n) [single] H. erectus woman" in the H. floresiensis/Flores site. I wonder when that TV-special was made. Yes, when there was only one cranium, that mycrocephaly diagonsis was proffered. Since then, many remains have been unearthed, and I believe the layers in which they were found had "hearth" dates from 14KA all the way back several hundred thousand years.
Since there are more than one skull with this feature, and the long bones suggest mean height somewhere around the 3'+ range, the COMBINED factors of small cranial capacity and small stature would suggest other factors, not explainable simply by microcephaly. Microcephaly describes the small cranial capacity and has (apparnetly) little correlation to stature (most microcephalics I find in photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries appear to be in the "normal" height range for AMHS). A "foundered population" is likely to manifest recessive traits like dwarfism or microcephaly, but "a new species" designation CAN be based on being an "isolated population", which IS one means by which new species are designated, even without substantial morphological differences (and these ARE "substantial" morphological differences, population-wide).
These are the primary factors that cause my curiosity.
I'm really curious if there's any evidence of microcephaly being a population-wide condition in any extant or skeletal populations (other than on Flores). If it's population-wide, can it rightly be called microcephaly, or does it then become a "regional variation" or, perhaps, a new species?
Anyone?
Peace
T
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Re: 3 Foot Tall Humans
Wed, April 11, 2007 - 9:14 PMWell, albeit Sudo~related, I felt such a connection in the 3foot tall story that I had to post this little tidbit...The story of the Dropas~
Enjoy!
Dropas Crash: 10,000 BC - Sino-Tibetan Border
A STRANGE RACE OF HUMAN BEINGS
High in the mountains of BayanKara-Ula, on the boarders of China and Tibet - a team of archeologists were conducting a very detailed routine survey of a series of interlinked caves. Their interests had been excited by the discovery of lines of neatly arranged graves which contained the skeletons of what must have been a strange race of human beings; strange because they had unnaturally spindly bodies and large, over-developed heads.
At first, it had been thought that the caves had been the home of a hitherto unkown species of ape.
But as the leader of the team - the Chinese archeologist, Professor Chi Pu Tei - pointed out, "Who ever heard of apes burying each other?"
It was while studying the skeletons that one of the team stumbled on a large, round stone disk, half buried in the dust on the floor of the cave. The team gathered round the discovery, turning it this way and that. It looked, absurdly, like a kind of 'Stone Age Gramophone record'. There was a hole in the center and a fine, spiral groove radiated to the rim. Closer inspection, however, showed that the groove was, in fact, a continous spiralling line of closely written characters. The object was a 'record' ... in more ways then one. Only nobody at the time - the year was 1938 - possessed the key to its incredible message.
The disc was labeled and filed away among other finds in the area. Even those who knew of its existence knew nothing of its meaning. Many experts tried to translate the hieroglyphs in the 20 years the disc languished in Peking. They all failed. It was not until another professor -Dr. Tsum Um Nui - broke the code and started to decipher the 'speaking grooves' that the extraordinary implications of the disc were realized. Realized, that is, only by only a select few. The outside world remained in ignorance. For the professor's conclusions on the neaning of the disc were so shattering that they were offically suppressed. The Peking Academy of Pre-History forbade him to publish his findings.
Two years later, in 1965, the professor and four of his colleagues were finally given permission to reveal their theory. It appeared under the long-winded but intriguing title, "The Grooved Script concerning Space-ships which, as recorded on the Discs, landed on Earth 12,000 years ago".
The 'records' - 716 of the grooved discs were later uncovered in the same caves - told an astonishing story of a 'space probe' by the inhabitants of another planet which came to grief in the Bayan-Kara-Ula mountain range. The strange, spiral script told how the peaceful intentions of the 'aliens' had been misunderstood and how many of them were hunted down and killed by members of the Ham tribe, who lived in the neighboring caves.
According to Tsum Um Nui, one of the lines of the hieroglyphs read, "The Dropas came down from the clouds in their aircraft. Our men, women and children hid in the caves ten times before sunrise. When at last they understood the sign language of the Dropas, they realized that the newcomers had peaceful intentions... Another section expressed 'regret' by the Ham tribe that the aliens' spaceship had crash-landed in such a remote and inaccessible mountains and that there had been no way to building a new one to enable Dropas to return to their own planet.
In the years since the discovery of the first disc, archeologists and anthropologists had learned more about the isolated Bayan-Kara-Ula area. And much of the information seemed to corroborate the bizarre story recorded on the discs.
Legend still preserved in the area spoke of small, gaunt, yellow faced men who 'came from the clouds, long, long ago'. The men had huge, bulging heads and puny bodies and were so ugly and repellent that they were hounded down by local tribesmen on horseback. Strangely, the description of the 'invaders' tallied with the skeletons orginally discovered in the caves by Professor Chi Pu Tei. On the walls of the caves themselves archeologists had uncovered crude pictures of the rising Sun, the Moon, unidentifiable stars and the Earth... all joined together by lines of pea-sized dots. Along with the discs, the cave drawings had been dated around 12,000 years old.
The cave area was still inhabited by two semi-troglodyte tribes known as the Hams and the Dropas, themselves extremely odd in appearance. The frail and stunted tribesmen averaged only about five feet in height and were neither typically Chinese nor Tibetan. "Their racial ack-ground," said one expert, "is a mystery."But even with the publications of Professor Tsum Um Nui's amazing translation, the story of the 'space discs' was not over. Russian scientists asked to see the discs and several were sent to Moscow for examination. They were scraped free of rock particles which had stuck to them and then put through chemical analysis. To the suprise of the scientists, they we found to contain large amounts of cobalt and other metallic substances. That was not all. When placed on a special turntable - according to Dr. Vyatcheslav Saizev, who described the experiments in the Soviet magazine Sputnik - they vibrated or 'hummed' in an unusual rhythm as though an electic charge was passing through them. Or as one scientist suggested, "as if they formed some part of an electrical circuit." At some time, they had clearly been exposed to extraordinarily high votages.
Did the discs actually record an abortive space mission by alien astronauts 12,000 years ago?
Nearly all the leading 'space speculators' - theorists like Erich von Daniken and Peter Kolosimo - believe so.
For once one accepts the proposition that aliens may have already have visted earth, then it follows that some of their space-probes must have failed and the astronauts must have been destroyed.
Posted by John Winston
johnfwin@mlode.com
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File#:10000BC-01
THE CHINESE ROSWELL
Date & Location: 10,000 BC Byan-Kara-Ula mountains China
Vallee Classification:CR3-333
Tangibile Evidence: Multi-Witness, Physical Evidence (The skeletons, and the discs), Local legend of a tribe called the dropas who "fell from the sky", Living tribe found matching the Dropas description and history.
Tangibilty index: 3.20 (64%)
It's been called "The Chinese Roswell". A story of a crashed spacecraft over 12,000 years ago in a remote mountain area of China. An expedition led by archeologist Chi Pu-Tei found a number of strange skeletons, entombed. The skeletons had abnormally large heads, and proportionally small frail frames for bodies. Also found were 716 stone discs with a spiral groove in each starting at the rim and leading to a hole in the center.
The grooves accompanied a series of heiroglyphics which could not be deciphered at the time they were found.
In 1963 a professor at the Beijing Academy of Sciences was succesful in translating some of the heiroglyphics on the stone discs. When he submitted his report to the Academy they forbid him to publish the results. He had determined the discs told the story of an alien ship which crashed over 12,000 years ago.
Two years later in 1965 the professor and his collegues were given permission to publish their findings. The story was of an alien race called the Dropas who after a long space flight, crashed in the mountains. A great number of them died in and after the crash, the survivors could not repair the ship.
Tales from the Qinghai province supported the findings of the report. They told of small, skinny, ugly beings, with oversized heads and small thin bodies and limbs. The beings had "come from the sky" long ago.
A report from China in 1995 also seems to support the tale of the Dropas. A new tribe had been found near the eastern border of the Byan-Kara-Ula mountains. The most interesting fact about this new group of people? Their size..... averaging 3 ft in height.
Hmmmm........ConneCtion? Look it up yourself...
