Will the hobbit argument ever be resolved?
Debate over tiny human’s evolutionary status is set to rage on.
For the past two years, researchers have been hotly debating (and coming dangerously close to fighting over) whether the fossils of a diminutive hominin found in Indonesia are those of a previously unknown species. The publication this week of some long-standing doubts over the ‘hobbit’ fossils show the debate is far from over.
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It will be resolved only if they keep serching and find new specimens, that prove or refute the ascribe of the hobbit LB1 to a new species: Homo floresiensis. By now, are a lot of studies from both sides, and no conclusions. But the "diseased" side it's a little weak.
Posted by: Martín Cagliani | August 27, 2006 06:13 AM
Features of modern Asian Homo-sapiens’ skulls are reminiscent of Homo Erectus and have sparked debate about interbreeding. “…both archaic and modern skulls from eastern Asia have flatter cheek and nasal areas than do skulls from other regions.” (http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/faq/encarta/encarta.htm). Is it possible that the debate about Homo floresiensis being a new species is more fundamental, relating to the ‘Out of Africa’ verses the ‘Continuity’ theories of human evolution? And couldn’t this question be answered by DNA analysis of the inhabitants of the island who are reported to have some very similar features to Homo floresiensis? For example: Jocobs claims there is similarity with Rampasasa pygmy (http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060821/full/060821-12.html) and then there are the tales of Ebu Gogo and the similar pendulous breasts of women in Labuan Baju, a village at the far western end of Flores (http://www.primates.com/ebu-gogo/index.html). Digging in the Liang Bua cave may be banned but there are other tests that could clarify these very exciting questions.
Posted by: Robby Miller | August 28, 2006 05:54 AM
Taken together with the dating dispute (Jim Giles. Nature, 16 June 2005; 435: 865 – 865), the present debate on ‘hobbit’ fossils indicates that something’s amiss in geology, paleontology, anthropology, and the allied disciplines. Perhaps at the end the scientists involved may be able to plug the loopholes and come up with a better evolutionary chart. Until then the arguments continue …
Posted by: C D Poduri | August 28, 2006 10:27 AM
If it doesn't have an "inverted T" chin, it's not H. sapiens.
Posted by: Nelson Amirkhan | August 28, 2006 10:12 PM
Could the so-called hobbit represent a member of an alternative lineage of human-like primates that evolved not from chimps in Africa, but from orang utans in Indonesia?
Posted by: Cornelius do Souza | August 31, 2006 04:48 PM
Nature has published an editorial on the subject here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7106/full/442957b.html
Posted by: nicola jones | September 1, 2006 08:44 AM
New to paleo-archaeological debates, I see how the field is unnecessarily diminished by the historical division between “out of Africa” and “regionalist” camps, in the Homo floresiensis discussion for example.
Human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)/Y-chromosome phylogeography shows very strongly that homo sapiens came “out of Africa”. But such explanation is generally too totalistic.
Both sides tend to illogically totalise, fail to mention or see that, while homo sapiens and the hominid genus almost certainly came “out of Africa”, Homo Erectus probably came out of Asia (Kohn 2006). Some homo erectus ancestors and other hominids may also have come “out of Asia”. Kohn writes: “homo erectus materialised almost simultaneously in Africa, east Asia and a point in between . . . and that the dates do not rule out the possibility that homo erectus evolved in Asia.”
This difference between homo erectus, homo sapiens centres of endemism is not only true, it is also very telling, has implications. As I explain in (paper 5 page 6 of) my ebook at www.nodrift.com/vol_5/5.1.pdf :
“SEXUAL SELECTION THUS MOST IMPORTANT FOR HOMO SAPIENS
. . . evolutionary considerations AND homo sapiens evolving in AA Africa, coming “Out of [AA] Africa”, not “Out of [IR] Asia”, page 5, imply a corollary:
Conventions are very much a product of sexual selection. Sexual selection has thus evidently been more important than natural selection in evolution of homo sapiens, in contrast to evolution of homo erectus, where natural selection may have been more important than sexual selection.”
REFERENCE: KOHN M. 2006. New Scientist. 2558, 1 July 2006, p35, p39.
Posted by: Peter Nielsen | September 26, 2006 04:00 AM
This is a great story and I think it is premature to dismiss this find based on the analysis of Jacob. We’ll know more once the original research team gets back to the caves in Flores. Hard to believe, but their work was halted by the Indonesian government at one point. Of course, I have a vested interest in hoping this story has some validity to it ,having written a fictional novel on the find. There is more on this ongoing controversy about Homo floresiensis at www.floresgirl.com.
Erik John Bertel
Posted by: Erik John Bertel | May 2, 2007 06:51 PM