Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
type specimen of
Homo floresiensis
(LB1) was a relatively complete skel-
eton. With the above as background, we can now discuss the evolution-
ary history of
Homo floresiensis.
skeleton keys
A crucial step for exploring the evolutionary history of
Homo floresien-
sis
is to compare the overall appearance of its body and its inferred
behaviors with those of other prehistoric hominins. However, there are
at least two hitches to this process. The first is that the most valuable
information comes from relatively complete skeletons, and discover-
ies of hominins that are well represented both above and below the
neck are extremely rare. These finds are especially prized, because
they provide integrated information about a species' overall physical
appearance, brain size, diet, and even the rates at which they grew up
(from teeth) and how they moved about in their environments. As we
have seen, a second problem is that researchers often disagree about the
identification of the species, and sometimes even the genus, of these
key skeletons. Needless to say, even if experts manage to agree that
LB1 looks most like Skeleton X, lack of consensus about the species (or
genus) to which that skeleton belongs adds to the difficulty of disentan-
Whatever preference one has for his or her species names, it is worth
reviewing the ten relatively complete hominin skeletons that can be
compared with Hobbit's (figure 27). One of the earliest is the famous
fossil that was nicknamed Lucy (AL 288-1), from approximately 3.2 mil-
Gray in 1974, Lucy's partial skeleton was from an adult female who was
assigned to a new species of australopithecine,
Australopithecus afarensis.
Her remains consisted of cranial fragments, a lower jaw, and parts of her
arms, rib cage, pelvis, and legs. AL 288-1 also had a bit of shoulder and
some fragments of one hand. In other words, enough of Lucy's skeleton
was found for us to have a fairly good idea of what her species looked like.
