Post by Linalin on Mar 7, 2005 20:50:32 GMT -5
Thomas Sutikna of the Indonesian Centre for Archaeology in Jakarta, Indonesia, holds a skull that he and fellow scientists believe represents a new human species, Homo floresiensis. Found in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, the species lived alongside humans 13,000 years ago.
Scientists working with powerful imaging computers say the spectacular "Hobbit" fossile recently discovered in Indonesia had distinctive brain features that could justify its classification as a seperate - and tiny - human ancestor.
The new report, published Thursday in the online journal Science Express, seems to support the idea of sophisticated human dwarf species marooned for eons while modern man proliferated.
The new research produced a computer-generated model that compared surface impressions on the inside of the fossil skull with brains of modern and ancient humans, as well as chimps and other primates.
The scientists said the model shows that the 3-foot specimen, nicknamed Hobbit, had a brain unlike anything they had seen before in the human lineage. The brain is chimplike in size, about 417 cubic centimeters.
Yet the Hobbit's brain shared wrinkled surface features with the much larger brains of both modern humans and Homo erectus, a tool-making ancestor that lived in south-east Asia more than 1 million years ago. Some of those brain features are consistent with higher cognitive traits.
These brain features coincide with physical evidence of advanced behaviors, sush as hunting, firemaking, and the use of stone tools, which were found alongside the bones in a cave on the remote equatorial island of Flores. To some, this suggests an organized society of tiny hunters flourished on the island for millenia at a time when modern humans dominated the planet.
"This is a unique creature," said Flordia State University anthropologist Dean Falk, who led the study. "We found amazing, specialized features across the surface from front to back."
"These findings are consistent with the kinds of sophisticated behaviors that are hypothesized" for the Hobbit, Falk said, but she stopped short of saying the Hobbit was a tool-maker."
-Beaver County Times
That is so awesome, but who's to say that the Homo floresiensis weren't the ones dominating the world from their little headquarters.
Scientists working with powerful imaging computers say the spectacular "Hobbit" fossile recently discovered in Indonesia had distinctive brain features that could justify its classification as a seperate - and tiny - human ancestor.
The new report, published Thursday in the online journal Science Express, seems to support the idea of sophisticated human dwarf species marooned for eons while modern man proliferated.
The new research produced a computer-generated model that compared surface impressions on the inside of the fossil skull with brains of modern and ancient humans, as well as chimps and other primates.
The scientists said the model shows that the 3-foot specimen, nicknamed Hobbit, had a brain unlike anything they had seen before in the human lineage. The brain is chimplike in size, about 417 cubic centimeters.
Yet the Hobbit's brain shared wrinkled surface features with the much larger brains of both modern humans and Homo erectus, a tool-making ancestor that lived in south-east Asia more than 1 million years ago. Some of those brain features are consistent with higher cognitive traits.
These brain features coincide with physical evidence of advanced behaviors, sush as hunting, firemaking, and the use of stone tools, which were found alongside the bones in a cave on the remote equatorial island of Flores. To some, this suggests an organized society of tiny hunters flourished on the island for millenia at a time when modern humans dominated the planet.
"This is a unique creature," said Flordia State University anthropologist Dean Falk, who led the study. "We found amazing, specialized features across the surface from front to back."
"These findings are consistent with the kinds of sophisticated behaviors that are hypothesized" for the Hobbit, Falk said, but she stopped short of saying the Hobbit was a tool-maker."
-Beaver County Times
That is so awesome, but who's to say that the Homo floresiensis weren't the ones dominating the world from their little headquarters.
