1. Homo floresiensis New species of Homo Found in Indonesia
18,000 years old
Shared planet with H. sapiens
Physical attributes
~1 meter tall
Small brain
Skeleton like H. erectus
In September 2003, a group of Indonesian and Australian researchers discovered the 18,000 year old remains of an adult one meter tall hominid that was not a pygmy or dwarf variant of a known species of Homo, but rather an entirely new species. This new species was dubbed Homo floresiensis in honor of Flores, the isolated Indonesian island where it was discovered. While the size and cranial capacity of H. floresiensis is reminiscent of Australopithecines, comparisons with H. erectus skeletons suggest that H. floresiensis is most closely related to this species. A graph of cranial capacity versus height for H. sapiens, variants of H. erectus (Erectines in the graph), Australopithecines, and H. floresiensis is shown in the slide. The uniqueness of H. floresiensis is indicated by its unique position on the graph. Paleoanthropologists speculate that H. floresiensis may have evolved from H. erectus ancestors that became isolated on Flores and evolved into a separate species. Interestingly, the remains of pygmy elephants and giant lizards, also the products of genetic isolation, were found alongside the hominid remains. The discovery of H. floresiensis is widely considered the greatest anthropological discovery in decades and adds another species to the list of now extinct hominids that once coexisted with H. sapiens. Studies of H. floresiensis are just beginning and researchers hope to be able to extract DNA from these relatively young remains.
From Figure 2 in Mirazon, M and Foley, R (2004) “Palaeoanthropology: Human evolution writ small” Nature 431:
© 2005 Prentice Hall Inc. / A Pearson Education Company / Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458