Abnormal Interests

Fossil Hominids links to an article in the Guardian Limited that is very interesting. The author of this Guardian article tells of an effort to associate small individuals who are now living on Flores Island with H. florsiensis.

If you want to understand human evolution, it may be worth starting with Johannes Daak from the remote village of Akel in the heavily forested centre of the Indonesian island of Flores. Johannes, from the Manggarai ethnic group, reckons he is 100 years old and says he owes his longevity and enduring strength to having only ever known one woman. He says he owes his stature to his ancestors. Johannes is no more than 4ft 1in (1m 25cm) tall, give or take an inch. His grandfather and father were also tiny, and so is his son. All of them had "normal" sized mothers, but for some reason, only the males in his family seem to be small.

Next month, two researchers from Indonesia's leading Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, will head to Akel and nearby Rampasasa villages to measure Johannes's family and other "little" people who live there. The size and proportions of their limbs and skulls will then be compared with those of the most celebrated skeleton in the world - Homo floresiensis, aka the Hobbit, the little lady of Flores, ebu, or, in the shorthand of the scientists who found the skeleton in a Flores cave called Lian Bua, LB1.

This raises some interesting possibilities: 1) H. florsiensis was a dwarfed H. sapiens whose prodigy is still extent on the island; 2) H. florsiensis had extreme and unusual sexual dimorphism (note: Brown et al thought the partial skeleton was female); 3) the current dimorphism of Johannes and his family are the result of interbreeding between H. florsiensis; 4) H. florsiensis and Johannes' family have nothing to do with each other. Others will likely see other possibilities. I do not know which, if any of these possibilities, are correct. It sure is interesting.

The tool assemblage is also a question. The tools found at the site are more advanced than anything known to come form H. erectus. The most accessible place to see them, that I know of, is in the Scientific American article by Kate Wong, referenced below. If these tools are truly associated archeologically with the H. floresiensis remains, than these people were truly advanced, if diminutive, H. erectus decendants. To my uneducated eye, these tools look like they are from a H. sapiens tool box. Even if the H. floresiensis remains turn out to be H. sapiens, they may still represent island dwarfism.

But how about those small brain cases, prominent brow ridges, low brain cases, etc.? I still hope they are from a new species evolving from H. erectus. But, as with many new discoveries in science, we will all need to wait and see as a consensus develops among those who trained and skilled.

References:
Brown P., Sutikna T., Morwood M., Soejono R.P., Jatmiko, Saptomo E.W. et al.: A new small-bodied hominin from the late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature, 431:1055-61.

Lahr M.M. and Foley R.: Human evolution writ small. Nature, 431:1043-4.

Morwood M., Soejono R.P., Roberts R.G., Sutikna T., Turney C.S.M., Westaway K.E. et al.: Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia. Nature, 431:1087-91.

Wong, K. : The Littlest Human. Scientific American, Febuary 2004, 56-65.

Additional Interesting Links:
John Hawks, Paleoanthropology, Genetics, and Evolution

Carl Zimmer, The Hobbit Wars, The Loom