Scientists found ‘hobbit’ bones on Indonesian island: What were they like?

Among the Komodo dragons, giant rats, and pygmy elephants of the Indonesian island of Flores, they also walked Men are one meter tall. Paleontologists have found that I Excavations The kind that “raises questions about howsevere decrease in body size “In some extinct species,” says the study published in Nature. Homo floresiensis or “The HobbitThey were called that because of their small size, and they inhabited the island. 700,000 years ago“The Sua Basin in central Flores, Indonesia, is a key area to elucidate the origin and evolution of this small hominin species known from the Late Pleistocene at Liang Bua, a limestone cave in western Flores,” the study reads.

The latest fossil suggests that this species underwent an early and radical reduction in body size. Adapting to a low-resource environmentIsland dwarfism was previously known from fossil remains of megafauna found on the islands of the Mediterranean and Indonesia, which were Miniature versions of their continental ancestors.“He explained, Geert van den BergH, a paleontologist at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and co-author of the study.

Evolutionary originshobbit menIt has been a hot topic for paleontologists for years. Some experts have questioned it. floresiensis was a single species.They thought it was a tribe with congenital problems that hindered its growth. Instead, many paleontologists have suggested that they were primitive ape-like speciesRecent discoveries have put a new theory on the table. In fact, paleontologists have shown that the hobbits could be descended fromman standingOr Java Man. The small arm bone is anatomically similar to previously discovered “hobbit” skeletons, but the teeth are those of Homo erectus, albeit much smaller.

fossil analysis

New research details Teeth, jaw and humerus fragmentBased on the length of the bone, the researchers were able to calculate the hobbit’s height, which was about one meter, or 6 centimeters less than the height of the hobbit’s skeleton. 60,000 years It was discovered in 2004 on the same island. “The 700,000-year-old humerus is not only shorter than that of Homo floresiensis [originale]And also Smallest known arm bone Among the fossil record of humans worldwide Adam Broome From the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University and co-authored the paper.

This very rare specimen confirms our hypothesis that Antennae of Homo floresiensis It was very small in body size. However, it is now clear from the small proportions of this limb bone that The early ancestors of the “Hobbits” They were smaller than we previously thought.”

Questions remain open about the Hobbit men.

Some questions remain unanswered. For example, we do not know How did the ancestors of Floresiensis reach the island? (Stone tools show that the island was inhabited a million years ago.) “It was generally thought that only modern humans equipped with marine technology would be able to reach an oceanic island surrounded by deep-sea straits like Flores,” van den Berg explained.

“To be able to track One lineage of advanced hominins On this time scale there is a lot. Promising for future research“He explained to the Guardian, Chris StringerHead of the Department of Human Origins at the Natural History Museum. “Many researchers believe that a dwarfism process It happened in Flores itself, but at the moment There is no way to know that.Because the process may have already started on other islands, such as Sumbawa or Sulawesi, before reaching Flores.”