Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
that these hominins were in the process of evolving a more fluid kind of
walking but still spent time in trees. I am also among those who think
that all seven of these skeletons are from australopithecines. The skel-
etons of the three remaining hominins who lived between 1.8 million
and 1.6 million years ago are another kettle of fish. The Dmanisi fos-
sils and WT 15K come from hominins who had long legs and relatively
modern body proportions. They were not australopithecines but rather
early variants of
Homo erectus.
The relatively primitive Dmanisi remains
are the only ones (of the ten) found outside Africa.
who did hobbit
look like?
With these ten partial skeletons in mind, we can now take a closer look
at Hobbit by focusing on LB1's skeleton (see figure 26). Scientists have
had less than a decade to study it, and the picture that is emerging is
astonishing and a bit perplexing. In fact, to say that the discovery of
Homo floresiensis
has shaken the very foundations of paleoanthropology
is not an exaggeration.
69
Nothing like LB1's skeleton has been seen before in the hominin fos-
sil record. She is unique from head to toe. What is intriguing, however,
is that a number of her most distinctive features
did
appear in other
hominin species, although not with her peculiar combination of fea-
tures. This is what has paleoanthropologists buzzing. Take, for example,
the overall shape of Hobbit's endocast, which appears similar to those
from Asian
Homo erectus
because it has a long and low profile, is much
wider at the back than the front, and is wider at the bottom rather than
of the bottom of Hobbit's frontal lobes and the size of her brain com-
pared with her body mass are closest to the measurements obtained for
Certain features of LB1's skull reinforce its similarity with
Homo erec-
tus:
Although LB1's braincase is tiny, its walls are extremely thick and
