Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
cussion? Would Hobbit's endocast have an overall shape that was similar
to endocasts from
Homo erectus,
despite their very different brain sizes?
Or would its shape resemble that of an endocast from a microcephalic
human? Alternatively, would the gyri and sulci most resemble those of
similarly sized endocasts from australopithecines and chimpanzees? Or
would the form of LB1's cerebral cortex appear more advanced despite
its tiny size? And what was going on with Hobbit's apelike relative brain
size? If
Homo erectus
had given rise to
Homo floresiensis,
then one would
expect the RBS of the more recent Hobbit to be larger, not smaller, than
those of its ancestors. Further, powerful scaling laws that govern RBS
would have made this doubly true, because, in this case, the ancestor
would have been much larger-bodied than the descendant. Something
was definitely out of whack when it came to LB1's brain, and we intended
to find out what it was.
When I departed for St. Louis in December 2004, I thought I knew
what Scooter, Kirk, Fred, and I would find. Because LB1's brain had
been as small as a chimpanzee's or an australopithecine's, I had a strong
hunch its virtual endocast was going to look apelike. If that happened,
would Morwood and his colleagues ever speak to us again? Although
this thought caused my knees to wobble, I knew that we were going
to learn a good deal about LB1's brain and that, in keeping with the
scientific spirit in which we were invited to collaborate, we would just
have to “tell it like it is.”
