Convict
7th Dec 2004, 10:26 PM
A previously unknown species of miniature human barely a metre tall, who hunted pygmy elephants and giant rats, lived on Australia's doorstep until at least 13,000 years ago.
Australian and Indonesian scientists have unearthed a near-complete skeleton of a female member of the species, nicknamed Hobbit, in a cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, 600 kilometres east of Bali.
The archaic humans co-existed for tens of thousands of years with our own species and might have died out only 500 years ago. Archaeologist and team member Mike Morwood, from the University of New England, said they were about the size of a modern three-year-old.
"They weighed around 25 kilograms and had a brain smaller than most chimpanzees," Professor Morwood said. "Even so, they used fire and made sophisticated stone tools. Despite tiny brains, these little humans almost certainly had language."
The discovery of the species, published today in the journal Nature, is being hailed as one of the most important in a century in the study of human origins. Until now, it had been thought our only recent cousins were the Neanderthals in Europe, who died out about 30,000 years ago.
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"The find is startling," said another team member, Dr Robert Foley, of the University of Cambridge. "It is breathtaking to think that such a different species of hominin existed so recently."
Named Homo floresiensis, it is the smallest species of human ever found. It is the first that overlapped recently with our species to have been discovered since Neanderthal remains were found in the 1800s.
The island the small humans lived on, Flores, was a "lost world" inhabited by creatures as strange as they were - giant rats and giant lizards, komodo dragons, and primitive dwarf elephants that were extinct elsewhere.
Bones including the skull, jaw, pelvis and leg of a 30-year-old woman were uncovered last year in Liang Bua cave on Flores and dated to about 18,000 years old.
More recently, the team has uncovered her arm bones as well remains from six other little people, who lived in the cave from about 95,000 years ago to 13,000 years ago. The existence of the species will prompt a "major rethink" of how humans evolved, according to another on the team, Peter Brown, of the University of New England.
"The most remarkable thing is that someone with that sort of small brain size was behaving in many ways like a modern human in terms of hunting and the stone tools they used," he said.
Professor Morwood said the little people were thought to have evolved from larger archaic humans, Homo erectus, who managed to sail across to Flores from Java about 800,000 years ago.
They evolved into dwarfs, like the elephants on the island, because small creatures had a better chance of survival on a remote island where there was little food and no major predators.
Homo erectus spread from Africa to Asia more than a million years ago, but were eventually replaced by our species, Homo sapiens, who left Africa about 120,000 years ago, according to the leading theory of human movement.
The little Homo floresiensis species survived on Flores long after Homo sapiens had moved into the region and begun to colonise Australia and New Guinea 50,000 years ago.
Bert Roberts, of the University of Wollongong, whose team carried out the dating, said there were a lot of detailed folk tales on Flores about little people.
"These stories suggest there may be more than a grain of truth to the idea that they were still living on Flores up until the Dutch arrived in the 1500s," Professor Roberts said. "The stories suggest they lived in caves. The villagers would leave gourds with food out for them to eat, but legend has it these were the guests from hell. They'd eat everything, including the gourds."
It is 110 years since the last human species was discovered in South-East Asia - the 700,000-year-old Homo erectus Java man specimen.
SMH (http://www.smh.com.au/news/Science/Mankinds-small-giant-leap/2004/10/28/1098667866340.html)
Australian and Indonesian scientists have unearthed a near-complete skeleton of a female member of the species, nicknamed Hobbit, in a cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, 600 kilometres east of Bali.
The archaic humans co-existed for tens of thousands of years with our own species and might have died out only 500 years ago. Archaeologist and team member Mike Morwood, from the University of New England, said they were about the size of a modern three-year-old.
"They weighed around 25 kilograms and had a brain smaller than most chimpanzees," Professor Morwood said. "Even so, they used fire and made sophisticated stone tools. Despite tiny brains, these little humans almost certainly had language."
The discovery of the species, published today in the journal Nature, is being hailed as one of the most important in a century in the study of human origins. Until now, it had been thought our only recent cousins were the Neanderthals in Europe, who died out about 30,000 years ago.
AdvertisementAdvertisement
"The find is startling," said another team member, Dr Robert Foley, of the University of Cambridge. "It is breathtaking to think that such a different species of hominin existed so recently."
Named Homo floresiensis, it is the smallest species of human ever found. It is the first that overlapped recently with our species to have been discovered since Neanderthal remains were found in the 1800s.
The island the small humans lived on, Flores, was a "lost world" inhabited by creatures as strange as they were - giant rats and giant lizards, komodo dragons, and primitive dwarf elephants that were extinct elsewhere.
Bones including the skull, jaw, pelvis and leg of a 30-year-old woman were uncovered last year in Liang Bua cave on Flores and dated to about 18,000 years old.
More recently, the team has uncovered her arm bones as well remains from six other little people, who lived in the cave from about 95,000 years ago to 13,000 years ago. The existence of the species will prompt a "major rethink" of how humans evolved, according to another on the team, Peter Brown, of the University of New England.
"The most remarkable thing is that someone with that sort of small brain size was behaving in many ways like a modern human in terms of hunting and the stone tools they used," he said.
Professor Morwood said the little people were thought to have evolved from larger archaic humans, Homo erectus, who managed to sail across to Flores from Java about 800,000 years ago.
They evolved into dwarfs, like the elephants on the island, because small creatures had a better chance of survival on a remote island where there was little food and no major predators.
Homo erectus spread from Africa to Asia more than a million years ago, but were eventually replaced by our species, Homo sapiens, who left Africa about 120,000 years ago, according to the leading theory of human movement.
The little Homo floresiensis species survived on Flores long after Homo sapiens had moved into the region and begun to colonise Australia and New Guinea 50,000 years ago.
Bert Roberts, of the University of Wollongong, whose team carried out the dating, said there were a lot of detailed folk tales on Flores about little people.
"These stories suggest there may be more than a grain of truth to the idea that they were still living on Flores up until the Dutch arrived in the 1500s," Professor Roberts said. "The stories suggest they lived in caves. The villagers would leave gourds with food out for them to eat, but legend has it these were the guests from hell. They'd eat everything, including the gourds."
It is 110 years since the last human species was discovered in South-East Asia - the 700,000-year-old Homo erectus Java man specimen.
SMH (http://www.smh.com.au/news/Science/Mankinds-small-giant-leap/2004/10/28/1098667866340.html)