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''Homo floresiensis'' also known as "Flores Man"; nicknamed "Hobbit") is an
extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
of small
archaic human A number of varieties of '' Homo'' are grouped into the broad category of archaic humans in the period that precedes and is contemporary to the emergence of the earliest early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') around 300 ka. Omo-Kibish I (Omo I) f ...
that inhabited the island of
Flores Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including the Komodo Islands off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km2, and th ...
, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago. The remains of an individual who would have stood about in height were discovered in 2003 at
Liang Bua Liang Bua is a limestone cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia, slightly north of the town of Ruteng in Manggarai Regency, East Nusa Tenggara. The cave demonstrated archaeological and paleontological potential in the 1950s and 1960s as describe ...
on the island of Flores in
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. Partial skeletons of at least nine individuals have been recovered, including one complete skull, referred to as "LB1". These remains have been the subject of intense research to determine whether they were diseased modern humans or a separate species; a 2017 study concludes by
phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...
analysis that ''H. floresiensis'' is an early species of ''
Homo ''Homo'' () is the genus that emerged in the (otherwise extinct) genus ''Australopithecus'' that encompasses the extant species ''Homo sapiens'' ( modern humans), plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely relate ...
'', a
sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and t ...
of ''
Homo habilis ''Homo habilis'' ("handy man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, ''H. habilis'' was highly ...
''. This
hominin The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas). The t ...
was at first considered remarkable for its survival until relatively recent times, initially thought to be only 12,000 years ago. However, more extensive stratigraphic and chronological work has pushed the dating of the most recent evidence of its existence back to 50,000 years ago. The ''Homo floresiensis'' skeletal material is now dated from 60,000 to 100,000 years ago; stone tools recovered alongside the skeletal remains were from archaeological horizons ranging from 50,000 to 190,000 years ago.


Specimens


Discovery

The first specimens were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores on 2 September 2003 by a joint Australian-Indonesian team of
archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
looking for evidence of the original
human migration Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location (geographic region). The movement often occurs over long distances and from one country to another (ex ...
of modern humans from Asia to Australia. They instead recovered a nearly complete, small-statured skeleton, LB1, in the Liang Bua cave, and subsequent excavations in 2003 and 2004 recovered seven additional skeletons, initially dated from 38,000 to 13,000 years ago. In 2004, a separate species ''Homo floresiensis'' was named and described by Peter Brown et al., with LB1 as the
holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...
. A tooth, LB2, was referred to the species. LB1 is a fairly complete skeleton, including a nearly complete skull, which belonged to a 30-year-old female, and has been nicknamed "Little Lady of Flores" or "Flo". An arm bone provisionally assigned to ''H. floresiensis'', specimen LB3, is about 74,000 years old. The specimens are not
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
ized and have been described as having "the consistency of wet
blotting paper Blotting paper, called bibulous paper, is a highly absorbent type of paper or other material. It is used to absorb an excess of liquid substances (such as ink or oil) from the surface of writing paper or objects. Blotting paper referred to as ...
". Once exposed, the bones had to be left to dry before they could be dug up.Morwood and van Oosterzee 2007 In 2009, additional finds were reported, increasing the minimum number of individuals represented by bones to fourteen. In 2015, teeth were referred to a fifteenth individual, LB15. Stone implements of a size considered appropriate to these small humans are also widely present in the cave. The implements are at horizons initially dated to 95,000 to 13,000 years ago. Modern humans reached the region by around 50,000 years ago, by which time ''H. floresiensis'' is thought to have gone extinct. Comparisons of the stone artifacts with those made by modern humans in
East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...
indicate many technological similarities.


Scandal over specimen damage

The fossils are property of the Indonesian state. In early December 2004, Indonesian paleoanthropologist
Teuku Jacob Teuku Jacob (6 December 1929 – 17 October 2007) was an Indonesian paleoanthropologist. As a student of Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald in the 1950s, Jacob claimed to have discovered and studied numerous specimens of '' Homo erectus''. He ...
removed most of the remains from their repository,
Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...
's National Research Centre of Archaeology, without the permission of one of the institute's directors,
Raden Panji Soejono Professor Raden Panji Soejono (born 1926) is an Indonesian archaeologist. He retired as director of the National Research Centre for Archaeology (ARKENAS) in 1987. Early in his career, in 1956, he served as Curator of Prehistory at the National Mu ...
, and kept them for three months. Professor Richard Roberts of the
University of Wollongong The University of Wollongong (abbreviated as UOW) is an Australian public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney. As of 2017, the university had an enrolment of ...
in Australia and other anthropologists expressed the fear that important scientific evidence would be sequestered by a small group of scientists who neither allowed access by other scientists nor published their own research. Jacob returned the remains on 23 February 2005 with portions severely damaged and missing two leg bones. Press reports thus described the condition of the returned remains: " ncludinglong, deep cuts marking the lower edge of the Hobbit's jaw on both sides, said to be caused by a knife used to cut away the rubber mould ... the chin of a second Hobbit jaw was snapped off and glued back together. Whoever was responsible misaligned the pieces and put them at an incorrect angle ... The pelvis was smashed, destroying details that reveal body shape, gait and evolutionary history.", causing the discovery team leader Morwood to remark, "It's sickening; Jacob was greedy and acted totally irresponsibly." Jacob, however, denied any wrongdoing. He stated that the damages occurred during transport from
Yogyakarta Yogyakarta (; jv, ꦔꦪꦺꦴꦒꦾꦏꦂꦠ ; pey, Jogjakarta) is the capital city of Special Region of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, in the south-central part of the island of Java. As the only Indonesian royal city still ruled by a monarchy, ...
back to Jakarta despite the claimed physical evidence that the jawbone had been broken while making a mould of the bones. In 2005, Indonesian officials forbade access to the cave. Some news media, such as the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, expressed the opinion that the restriction was to protect Jacob, who was considered "Indonesia's king of palaeoanthropology", from being proven wrong. Scientists were allowed to return to the cave in 2007, shortly after Jacob's death.


Classification


Phylogeny

The discoverers proposed that a variety of features, both primitive and derived, identify these individuals as belonging to a new species, ''Homo floresiensis''. Based on previous date estimates, the discoverers also proposed that ''H. floresiensis'' lived contemporaneously with modern humans on Flores. Before publication, the discoverers were considering placing LB1 into her own genus, ''Sundanthropus floresianus'' (), but reviewers of the article recommended that, despite her size, she should be placed in the genus ''Homo''. Two orthopedic studies published in 2007 reported that the wrist bones were more similar to those of
chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
s and ''
Australopithecus ''Australopithecus'' (, ; ) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genus ''Homo'' (which includes modern humans) emerged within ''Australopithecus'', as sister to e.g. ''Austral ...
'' than to modern humans. Another 2007 study of the bones and joints of the arm, shoulder, and lower limbs also concluded that ''H. floresiensis'' was more similar to early humans and other apes than modern humans.Larson ''et al.'' 2007
preprint online
) In 2008, South African palaeoanthropologist
Lee Rogers Berger Lee Rogers Berger (born December 22, 1965) is an American-born South African paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. He is best known for his discovery of the ''Australopithecus sediba'' type site, Malapa; his leadersh ...
and colleagues described the earliest human remains from the
Palau Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Caro ...
Archipelago, and noted several parallels to ''H. floresiensis''; they suggested supposedly diagnostic traits of ''H. floresiensis'' were instead a result of
insular dwarfism Insular dwarfism, a form of phyletic dwarfism, is the process and condition of large animals evolving or having a reduced body size when their population's range is limited to a small environment, primarily islands. This natural process is disti ...
of an ''H. erectus'' population. A 2009
cladistic analysis Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived chara ...
concluded ''H. floresiensis'' branched off very early from the modern human line, either shortly before or shortly after the evolution of ''
H. habilis ''Homo habilis'' ("handy man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, ''H. habilis'' was highly c ...
'' 1.96–1.66million years ago. In 2009, American anthropologist William Jungers and colleagues found that the foot of ''H. floresiensis'' has several primitive characteristics, and that they could be the descendants of a species much earlier than ''H. erectus''. A 2015
Bayesian Thomas Bayes (/beɪz/; c. 1701 – 1761) was an English statistician, philosopher, and Presbyterian minister. Bayesian () refers either to a range of concepts and approaches that relate to statistical methods based on Bayes' theorem, or a followe ...
analysis found greatest similarity with '' Australopithecus sediba'', ''Homo habilis'' and the primitive '' H. erectus georgicus'', raising the possibility that the ancestors of ''H. floresiensis'' left Africa before the appearance of ''
H. erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...
'', and were possibly even the first hominins to do so. However, ''H. floresiensis'' has several dental similarities to ''H. erectus'', which could mean ''H. erectus'' was the ancestor species. Their ancestors may have reached the island by one million years ago. In 2016, fossil teeth and a partial jaw from hominins assumed to be ancestral to ''H. floresiensis'' were discovered at
Mata Menge Mata Menge is an early Middle Pleistocene paleoanthropological site located in the Ola Bula Formation in the So'a Basin on the island of Flores, Indonesia. Lithic artefacts and hominin remains have been discovered at the site. The level of sophisti ...
, about from Liang Bua. They date to about 700,000 years ago and are noted by Australian archaeologist Gerrit van den Bergh for being even smaller than the later fossils. Based on these, he suggested that ''H. floresiensis'' derived from a population of ''H. erectus'' and rapidly shrank. A
phylogenetic analysis In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...
published in 2017 suggests that ''H. floresiensis'' was descended from the same (presumably
australopithecine Australopithecina or Hominina is a subtribe in the tribe Hominini. The members of the subtribe are generally ''Australopithecus'' (cladistically including the genus, genera ''Homo'', ''Paranthropus'', and ''Kenyanthropus''), and it typically in ...
) ancestor as ''H. habilis'', making it a
sister taxon In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and t ...
to ''H. habilis''. ''H. floresiensis'' would thus represent a hitherto unknown and very early migration out of Africa. A similar conclusion was suggested in a 2018 study dating stone artefacts found at
Shangchen Shangchen () is a Lower Palaeolithic archaeological site in Lantian County, Shaanxi, China, some 25 km south of Weinan. It was discovered in 1964, and excavated during 2004 and 2017. Stone tools found at the site were dated based on magn ...
, central China, to 2.1 million years ago.


DNA extraction attempt

In 2006, two teams attempted to extract DNA from a tooth discovered in 2003, but both teams were unsuccessful. It has been suggested that this happened because the
dentine Dentin () (American English) or dentine ( or ) (British English) ( la, substantia eburnea) is a calcified tissue of the body and, along with enamel, cementum, and pulp, is one of the four major components of teeth. It is usually covered by e ...
was targeted; new research suggests that the
cementum Cementum is a specialized calcified substance covering the root of a tooth. The cementum is the part of the periodontium that attaches the teeth to the alveolar bone by anchoring the periodontal ligament.Illustrated Dental Embryology, Histology, a ...
has higher concentrations of DNA. Moreover, the heat generated by the high speed of the drill bit may have denatured the DNA.


Congenital disorder hypotheses

The small brain size of ''H. floresiensis'' at 417 cc has prompted hypotheses that the specimens were simply ''H. sapiens'' with a birth defect, rather than the result of neurological reorganisation. This theory, however, has been contested, as detailed below.


Microcephaly

Prior to Jacob's removal of the fossils, American neuroanthropologist
Dean Falk Dean Falk (born June 25, 1944) is an American academic neuroanthropologist who specializes in the evolution of the brain and cognition in higher primates. She is the Hale G. Smith Professor of Anthropology and a Distinguished Research Professor ...
and her colleagues performed a CT scan of the LB1 skull and a virtual
endocast An endocast is the internal cast of a hollow object, often referring to the cranial vault in the study of brain development in humans and other organisms. Endocasts can be artificially made for examining the properties of a hollow, inaccessible sp ...
, and concluded that the brainpan was neither that of a
pygmy In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...
nor an individual with a malformed skull and brain. In response, American neurologist Jochen Weber and colleagues compared the computer model skull with
microcephalic Microcephaly (from New Latin ''microcephalia'', from Ancient Greek μικρός ''mikrós'' "small" and κεφαλή ''kephalé'' "head") is a medical condition involving a smaller-than-normal head. Microcephaly may be present at birth or it ...
human skulls, and found that the skull size of LB1 falls in the middle of the size range of the human samples, and is not inconsistent with microcephaly. In 2006, American biologist Robert Martin and colleagues also concluded that the skull was probably microcephalic, arguing that the brain is far too small to be a separate dwarf species; he said that, if it were, the 400-cubic-centimeter brain would indicate a creature only in height, one third the length of the discovered skeleton. A 2006 study stated that LB1 probably descended from a pygmy population of modern humans, but herself shows signs of microcephaly, and other specimens from the cave show small stature but not microcephaly. In 2005, the original discoverers of ''H. floresiensis'', after unearthing more specimens, countered that the skeptics had mistakenly attributed the height of ''H. floresiensis'' to
microcephaly Microcephaly (from New Latin ''microcephalia'', from Ancient Greek μικρός ''mikrós'' "small" and κεφαλή ''kephalé'' "head") is a medical condition involving a smaller-than-normal head. Microcephaly may be present at birth or it ...
. Falk stated that Martin's assertions were unsubstantiated. In 2006, Australian palaeoanthropologist Debbie Argue and colleagues also concluded that the finds are indeed a new species. In 2007, Falk found that ''H. floresiensis'' brains were similar in shape to modern humans, and the
frontal Front may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film * ''The Front'', 1976 film Music * The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...
and
temporal lobe The temporal lobe is one of the four Lobes of the brain, major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain. The temporal lobe ...
s were well-developed, which would not have been the case were they microcephalic. In 2008, Greek palaeontologist George Lyras and colleagues said that LB1 falls outside the range of variation for human microcephalic skulls. However, a 2013 comparison of the LB1 endocast to a set of 100 normocephalic and 17 microcephalic endocasts showed that there is a wide variation in microcephalic brain shape ratios and that in these ratios the group as such is not clearly distinct from normocephalics. The LB1 brain shape nevertheless aligns slightly better with the microcephalic sample, with the shape at the extreme edge of the normocephalic group. A 2016 pathological analysis of LB1's skull revealed no pathologies nor evidence of microcephaly, and concluded that LB1 is a separate species.


Laron syndrome

A 2007 study postulated that the skeletons were those of humans who suffered from
Laron syndrome Laron syndrome (LS), also known as growth hormone insensitivity or growth hormone receptor deficiency (GHRD), is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by a lack of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1; somatomedin) production in response t ...
, which was first reported in 1966, and is most common in
inbreeding Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely related genetically. By analogy, the term is used in human reproduction, but more commonly refers to the genetic disorders and o ...
populations, which may have been the scenario on the small island. It causes a short stature and small skull, and many conditions seen in Laron syndrome patients are also exhibited in ''H. floresiensis''. The estimated height of LB1 is at the lower end of the average for afflicted human women, but the endocranial volume is much smaller than anything exhibited in Laron syndrome patients. DNA analysis would be required to support this theory.


Congenital iodine deficiency syndrome

In 2008 Australian researcher Peter Obendorf—who studies
congenital iodine deficiency syndrome Congenital iodine deficiency syndrome is a medical condition present at birth marked by impaired physical and mental development, due to insufficient thyroid hormone ( hypothyroidism) often caused by insufficient dietary iodine during pregnancy. ...
—and colleagues suggested that LB1 and LB6 suffered from myxoedematous (ME) congenital iodine deficiency syndrome resulting from
congenital hypothyroidism Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is thyroid hormone deficiency present at birth. If untreated for several months after birth, severe congenital hypothyroidism can lead to growth failure and permanent intellectual disability. Infants born with cong ...
(underactive
thyroid The thyroid, or thyroid gland, is an endocrine gland in vertebrates. In humans it is in the neck and consists of two connected lobes. The lower two thirds of the lobes are connected by a thin band of tissue called the thyroid isthmus. The thy ...
), and that they were part of an affected population of ''H. sapiens'' on the island. Congenital iodine deficiency syndrome, caused by
iodine deficiency Iodine deficiency is a lack of the trace element iodine, an essential nutrient in the diet. It may result in metabolic problems such as goiter, sometimes as an endemic goiter as well as congenital iodine deficiency syndrome due to untreated cong ...
, is expressed by small bodies and reduced brain size (but ME causes less motor and mental disablement than other forms of congenital iodine deficiency syndrome), and is a form of dwarfism still found in the local Indonesian population. They said that various features of ''H. floresiensis'' are diagnostic characteristics, such as enlarged pituitary fossa, unusually straight and untwisted humeral heads, relatively thick limbs, double rooted premolar, and primitive wrist morphology. However, Falk's scans of LB1's pituitary fossa show that it is not larger than usual. Also, in 2009, anthropologists
Colin Groves Colin Peter Groves (24 June 1942 – 30 November 2017) was a British-Australian biologist and anthropologist. Groves was Professor of Biological Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Education Born in Englan ...
and Catharine FitzGerald compared the Flores bones with those of ten people who had had cretinism, and found no overlap. Obendorf and colleagues rejected Groves and FitzGerald's argument the following year. A 2012 study similar to Groves and FitzGeralds' also found no evidence of congenital iodine deficiency syndrome.


Down syndrome

In 2014, physical anthropologist
Maciej Henneberg Maciej Henneberg (born 1949) is a Polish- Australian Wood Jones Professor of Anthropological and Comparative Anatomy at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He has held this position since 1996 and specialises in human evolution, forensic scie ...
and colleagues claimed that LB1 suffered from
Down syndrome Down syndrome or Down's syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual dis ...
, and that the remains of other individuals at the Flores site were merely normal modern humans. However, there are a number of characteristics shared by both LB1 and LB6 as well as other known early humans and absent in ''H. sapiens'', such as the lack of a chin. In 2016, a comparative study concluded that LB1 did not exhibit a sufficient number of Down syndrome characteristics to support a diagnosis.


Anatomy

The most important and obvious identifying features of ''Homo floresiensis'' are its small body and small cranial capacity. Brown and Morwood also identified a number of additional, less obvious features that might distinguish LB1 from modern ''H. sapiens'', including the form of the teeth, the absence of a chin, and a lesser torsion in the lower end of the
humerus The humerus (; ) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extremity consists of a roun ...
(upper arm bone). Each of these putative distinguishing features has been heavily scrutinized by the scientific community, with different research groups reaching differing conclusions as to whether these features support the original designation of a new species, or whether they identify LB1 as a severely pathological ''H. sapiens''. A 2015 study of the dental morphology of forty teeth of ''H. floresiensis'' compared to 450 teeth of living and extinct human species, states that they had "primitive canine-premolar and advanced molar morphologies," which is unique among hominins. The discovery of additional partial skeletons has verified the existence of some features found in LB1, such as the lack of a chin, but Jacob and other research teams argue that these features do not distinguish LB1 from local modern humans. Lyras ''et al.'' have asserted, based on 3D-
morphometrics Morphometrics (from Greek μορϕή ''morphe'', "shape, form", and -μετρία ''metria'', "measurement") or morphometry refers to the quantitative analysis of ''form'', a concept that encompasses size and shape. Morphometric analyses are co ...
, that the skull of LB1 differs significantly from all ''H. sapiens'' skulls, including those of small-bodied individuals and microcephalics, and is more similar to the skull of ''
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...
''.
Ian Tattersall Ian Tattersall (born 1945) is a British-born American paleoanthropologist and a curator emeritus with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, New York. In addition to human evolution, Tattersall has worked extensively with lemur ...
argues that the species is wrongly classified as ''Homo floresiensis'' as it is far too archaic to assign to the genus ''Homo''.


Size

LB1's height is estimated to have been . The height of a second skeleton, LB8, has been estimated at based on
tibia The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ...
l length. These estimates are outside the range of normal modern
human height Human height or stature is the distance from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head in a human body, standing erect. It is measured using a stadiometer, in centimetres when using the metric system or SI system, or feet and inches when u ...
and considerably shorter than the average adult height of even the smallest modern humans, such as the Mbenga and
Mbuti The Mbuti people, or Bambuti, are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their languages are Central Sudanic languages and Bantu languages. Subgroups Bambuti are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and are one of the old ...
at ,
Twa Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with ...
,
Semang The Semang are an ethnic-minority group of the Malay Peninsula. They live in mountainous and isolated forest regions of Perak, Pahang, Kelantan and Kedah of Malaysia and the southern provinces of Thailand. The Semang are among the different eth ...
at for adult women of the
Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula (Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area ...
, or the
Andamanese The Andamanese are the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, part of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal in Southeast Asia. The Andamanese peoples are among the various groups ...
at also for adult women. LB1's body mass is estimated to have been . LB1 and LB8 are also somewhat smaller than the australopithecines, such as ''
Lucy Lucy is an English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings are Luci, Luce, Lu ...
'', from three million years ago, not previously thought to have expanded beyond Africa. Thus, LB1 and LB8 may be the shortest and smallest members of the extended human group discovered thus far. Their short stature was likely due to
insular dwarfism Insular dwarfism, a form of phyletic dwarfism, is the process and condition of large animals evolving or having a reduced body size when their population's range is limited to a small environment, primarily islands. This natural process is disti ...
, where size decreases as a response to fewer resources in an island ecosystem. In 2006, Indonesian palaeoanthropologist
Teuku Jacob Teuku Jacob (6 December 1929 – 17 October 2007) was an Indonesian paleoanthropologist. As a student of Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald in the 1950s, Jacob claimed to have discovered and studied numerous specimens of '' Homo erectus''. He ...
and colleagues said that LB1 has a similar stature to the Rampasasa pygmies who inhabit the island, and that size can vary substantially in pygmy populations. The Rampasasa pygmies are completely unrelated to ''H. floresiensis''. Aside from smaller body size, the specimens seem to otherwise resemble ''H. erectus'', a species known to have been living in
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
at times coincident with earlier finds purported to be of ''H. floresiensis''.


Brain

In addition to a small body size, ''H. floresiensis'' had a remarkably small
brain size The size of the brain is a frequent topic of study within the fields of anatomy, biological anthropology, animal science and evolution. Brain size is sometimes measured by weight and sometimes by volume (via MRI scans or by skull volume). Neur ...
. LB1's brain is estimated to have had a volume of , placing it at the range of
chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
s or the extinct australopithecines. LB1's brain size is half that of its presumed immediate ancestor, ''H. erectus'' (). The brain-to-body mass ratio of LB1 lies between that of ''H. erectus'' and the great apes. Such a reduction is likely due to insular dwarfism, and a 2009 study found that the reduction in brain size of extinct
pygmy hippopotamus The pygmy hippopotamus or pygmy hippo (''Choeropsis liberiensis'') is a small hippopotamid which is native to the forests and swamps of West Africa, primarily in Liberia, with small populations in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Ivory Coast. It has ...
es in Madagascar compared with their living relatives is proportionally greater than the reduction in body size, and similar to the reduction in brain size of ''H. floresiensis'' compared with ''H. erectus''. Smaller size does not appear to have affected mental faculties, as
Brodmann area 10 Brodmann area 10 (BA10, frontopolar prefrontal cortex, rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, or anterior prefrontal cortex) is the anterior-most portion of the prefrontal cortex in the human brain. BA10 was originally defined broadly in terms of its cy ...
on the
prefrontal cortex In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, BA13, BA14, BA24, BA25, BA32, BA44, BA45, BA46, ...
, which is associated with cognition, is about the same size as that of modern humans. ''H. floresiensis'' is also associated with evidence for advanced behaviours, such as the use of fire, butchering, and stone tool manufacturing.


Limbs

The angle of humeral torsion is much less than in modern humans. The humeral head of modern humans is twisted between 145 and 165 degrees to the plane of the elbow joint, whereas it is 120 degrees in ''H. floresiensis''. This may have provided an advantage when arm-swinging, and, in tandem with the unusual morphology of the
shoulder girdle The shoulder girdle or pectoral girdle is the set of bones in the appendicular skeleton which connects to the arm on each side. In humans it consists of the clavicle and scapula; in those species with three bones in the shoulder, it consists of ...
and short
clavicle The clavicle, or collarbone, is a slender, S-shaped long bone approximately 6 inches (15 cm) long that serves as a strut between the shoulder blade and the sternum (breastbone). There are two clavicles, one on the left and one on the rig ...
, would have displaced the shoulders slightly forward into an almost shrugging position. The shrugging position would have compensated for the lower range of motion in the arm, allowing for similar maneuverability in the elbows as modern humans. The wrist bones are similar to those of apes and ''
Australopithecus ''Australopithecus'' (, ; ) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genus ''Homo'' (which includes modern humans) emerged within ''Australopithecus'', as sister to e.g. ''Austral ...
'', significantly different from those of modern humans, lacking features which evolved at least 800,000 years ago. The leg bones are more robust than those of modern humans. The feet were unusually flat and long in relation with the rest of the body. As a result, when walking, they would have had to have bent the knees further back than modern humans do. This caused a high-stepping gait and low walking speed. The toes had an unusual shape and the big toe was very short.


Culture

Because of a deep neighbouring
strait A strait is an oceanic landform connecting two seas or two other large areas of water. The surface water generally flows at the same elevation on both sides and through the strait in either direction. Most commonly, it is a narrow ocean channe ...
, Flores remained isolated during the
Wisconsin glaciation The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsin glaciation, was the most recent glacial period of the North American ice sheet complex. This advance included the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which nucleated in the northern North American Cord ...
(the last glacial period), despite the low sea levels that united
Sundaland Sundaland (also called Sundaica or the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of South-eastern Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It ...
. Therefore, the ancestors of ''H. floresiensis'' could only have reached the isolated island by water transport, perhaps arriving in bamboo rafts around one million years ago. The cave yielded a great quantity, over ten thousand, of stone artefacts, mainly
lithic flake In archaeology, a lithic flake is a "portion of rock removed from an objective piece by percussion or pressure,"Andrefsky, W. (2005) ''Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis''. 2d Ed. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press and may also be refe ...
s, surprising considering ''H. floresiensis's'' incredibly small brain size. This has led some researchers to theorize that ''H. floresiensis'' inherited their tool-making ability from ''H. erectus''. Points, perforators,
blades A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. Historic ...
, and microblades were associated with remains of the extinct elephant ''
Stegodon ''Stegodon'' ("roofed tooth" from the Ancient Greek words , , 'to cover', + , , 'tooth' because of the distinctive ridges on the animal's molars) is an extinct genus of proboscidean, related to elephants. It was originally assigned to the fami ...
'', and were probably hafted into barbs to sink into the elephant. This indicates the inhabitants were targeting juvenile ''Stegodon''. Similar artefacts are found at the Soa Basin south, associated with ''Stegodon'' and
Komodo dragon The Komodo dragon (''Varanus komodoensis''), also known as the Komodo monitor, is a member of the monitor lizard family Varanidae that is endemic to the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, and Gili Motang. It is the largest extant ...
remains, and are attributed to a likely ancestral population of ''H. erectus''.


Extinction

The youngest ''H. floresiensis'' bone remains in the cave date to 60,000 years ago, and the youngest stone tools to 50,000 years ago. The previous estimate of 12,000 BCE was due to an undetected unconformity in the cave stratigraphy. Their disappearance is close to the time that modern humans reached the area, suggesting that the initial encounter caused or contributed to their extinction. This would be consistent with the disappearance of ''
Homo neanderthalensis Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the ...
'' from Europe about 40,000 years ago, within 5,000 years after the arrival of modern humans there, and other anthropogenic extinctions. Modern human bones recovered from the cave dating to 46,000 years ago indicate replacement of the former ''H. floresiensis'' inhabitants. The other megafauna of the island, such as '' Stegodon florensis insularis'' and the giant stork ''
Leptoptilos robustus ''Leptoptilos robustus'' (from reek: thin, slender+ reek: soft featherand atin: strong is an extinct species of large-bodied stork belonging to the genus '' Leptoptilos'' that lived on the island of Flores in Indonesia during the Pleistocen ...
'', also disappeared.


"Hobbit" nickname

''Homo floresiensis'' was swiftly nicknamed "the
hobbit Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien. About half average human height, Tolkien presented hobbits as a variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof. Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings, ...
" by the discoverers, after the fictional race popularized in
J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...
's book ''
The Hobbit ''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the '' ...
'', and some of the discoverers suggested naming the species ''H. hobbitus''. In October 2012, a New Zealand scientist due to give a public lecture on ''Homo floresiensis'' was told by the
Tolkien Estate The Tolkien Estate is the legal body which manages the property of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, including the copyright for most of his works. The individual copyrights have for the most part been assigned by the estate to subsidiary ent ...
that he was not allowed to use the word "hobbit" in promoting the lecture. In 2012, the American film studio
The Asylum The Asylum is an American independent film company and distributor that focuses on producing low-budget, direct-to-video films. It is notorious for producing titles that capitalize on productions by major studios, often using film titles and sc ...
, which produces low-budget "
mockbuster A mockbuster (also known as knockbuster or a drafting opportunity) is a film created to exploit the publicity of another major motion picture with a similar title or subject. Mockbusters are often made with a low budget and quick production to max ...
" films,Somma, Brandon (4 January 2013).
Masters of the Mockbuster:What The Asylum Is All About
. The Artifice. planned to release a movie entitled ''Age of the Hobbits'' depicting a "peace-loving" community of ''H.floresiensis'' "enslaved by the Java Men, a race of flesh-eating dragon-riders." The film was intended to piggyback on the success of
Peter Jackson Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known as the director, writer and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy ( ...
's film '' The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey''. The film was blocked from release due to a legal dispute about using the word "hobbit." The Asylum argued that the film did not violate the Tolkien copyright because the film was about ''H.floresiensis'', "uniformly referred to as 'Hobbits' in the scientific community." The film was later retitled ''
Clash of the Empires ''Clash of the Empires'' (also known as ''Lord of the Elves'') is an American fantasy/ adventure film produced by The Asylum and directed by Joseph Lawson. It stars Christopher Judge, Bai Ling and Sun Korng. It was originally titled ''Age of th ...
''.


See also

* * * * Ebu gogo – small humanoid creatures in the folklore of Flores * Orang Pendak – short humanoid creatures said to inhabit remote, mountainous forests on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo


References


Citation


Sources

* * * * * * * * Knepper, Gert M. (2019): Floresmens - Het leven van Theo Verhoeven, missionaris en archeoloog. (Bookscout, Soest, The Netherlands) (= a biography of the discoverer of the Liang Bua, in Dutch)


External links

* * * Hawks, John. Blog of a professor of anthropology who closely follows this topic. :* :* :* :*
''Scientific American'' Interview with Professor Brown
27 October 2004


''Homo floresiensis''
- The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program * Blog commentary on the Obendorf paper.

Virtual Endocasts of the "Hobbit" – Electronic Radiology Laboratory
Nova's Alien from Earth documentary website, complete program available through Watch Online feature

Hobbits in the Haystack: ''Homo floresiensis'' and Human Evolutions – Turkhana Basin Institute presentment at the Seventh Stony Brook Human Evolution Symposium

Human Timeline (Interactive)
– Smithsonian,
National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...
(August 2016). {{Authority control 2003 archaeological discoveries Early species of Homo Pleistocene primates Prehistoric Indonesia Fossil taxa described in 2004 Flores Island (Indonesia) Extinct animals of Indonesia Pleistocene mammals of Asia