Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
7. Forth 2005. On the basis of information provided to him by the Nage,
Forth estimates that the
ebu gogo
were exterminated between 1750 and 1820.
8. Goldenberg 2007.
9. Forth 2005, 15.
10. Roberts 2004.
11. As discussed in chapter 5, it would not be surprising if LB1 was smaller
than her ancestors, because the descendants of many larger animals that migrate
to islands become dwarfed in keeping with the “island rule.” Problems with this
interpretation remain unresolved, however, such as the small size of Hobbit's
brain relative to her body size and (as detailed in this chapter) the resemblance
of a good deal of her anatomy to that of much earlier small-bodied hominins.
12. To avoid clutter, I have not included
Paranthropus,
because this group of
hominins is believed to have been a side branch that was not directly involved in
human evolution. The chart also excludes hominins that lived between approx-
imately 4.2 million and 7 million years ago, such as
Ardipithecus, Orrorin,
and
Sahelanthropus,
because their interpretations are murky, and, in any event, they
are not relevant for understanding the origins of
Homo floresiensis.
13. Dart 1925a.
14. Wood and Collard 1999; Wood and Lonergan 2008; Clarke 2008.
15. Ron Clarke, for example, includes OH 7 and KNM-ER 1470 in
Homo habi-
lis
but views OH 62 and OH 24 as
Australopithecus africanus.
See Clarke 2008.
16. Wood and Lonergan 2008, 361.
17. Wood and Lonergan 2008.
18. Gabunia and Vekua 1995; Gabunia et al. 2000; Vekua et al. 2002; Lordki-
panidze et al. 2005, 2006, 2007.
19. Swisher et al. 1996.
20. Wood and Lonergan 2008.
21. Collard and Wood 2007; Wood and Lonergan 2008. It is not that scien-
tists are trying to be difficult when they assign fossil hominins to a particular
genus and species. As these two studies detail, one must choose from various
criteria when making such assignments, and they all have potential problems
because of the imperfect nature of the fossil record and the weaknesses that
are inherent in different methodologies.
22. Johanson, White, and Coppens 1978.
23. Wood and Lonergan (2008) call these nonrobust australopithecines
“archaic hominins,” by which they mean species that are not in the following
genera:
Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, Ardipithecus, Paranthropus,
and
Homo.
Alas, a rela-
tively complete skeleton for the genus
Paranthropus
has yet to be discovered, so
