Flo’s Little Brain - The Fossil Chronicles - page 105

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Flo's Little Brain
I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me.
A. A. Milne
We were keenly aware that LB1's virtual endocast would give us the first
clear snapshot of the cerebral cortex of Hobbit (also known as Flo). While
I was in St. Louis, my Mallinckrodt colleagues and I intended to lay the
groundwork for future comparative research on LB1's brain that would be
carried out with Mike Morwood's team. An obvious first step was to get
an initial peek at how LB1's virtual endocast compared with those from
chimpanzees, certain other fossil hominins, and humans. This would be
a highly visual endeavor and therefore perfect for the film. Our anticipa-
tion was almost palpable!
Deciding what kinds of virtual endocasts should be compared with
LB1's was easy. Because some skeptics had claimed that the Homo floresien-
sis remains were from microcephalic humans, a virtual endocast would be
prepared from a cast of a microcephalic Homo sapiens, which we had bor-
rowed from the American Museum of Natural History. 1 Other colleagues
had suggested that LB1 represents a pygmy Homo sapiens, so we were also
going to make a virtual endocast from the skull of a female pygmy loaned
from the same museum . 2 Another virtual endocast would be obtained
from a skull of a normal Homo sapiens female from the Cleveland Museum
of Natural History. In addition, we intended to prepare virtual endocasts
from an adult female Homo erectus and an adult female chimpanzee.
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