Is there in fact a reasonable scientific question of whether the discovery shows a different branch of humanity, vs a microcephalic individual?
I can’t believe that there is. I mean, consider the statistics. The likelihood of a dwarf microcephalic individual, surviving to adulthood, at that time, then the remains surviving and being the first discovered in that stratum of the cave, no, it’s just too unlikely.
It seems to me that the controversy is all about egos. Perhaps there is an ethnic pride issue, that a foreigner should make that discovery in Indonesia, rather than a proud local scholar?
In fact, what controversy is there remaining regarding the Homo Florensis?
That’s part of the controversy. Some of the indigenous people are quite short in stature, although H. floresiensis would have been much shorter still. But there has been no genetic evidence found which links those fossils to the indigenous population, just the observation about short stature.
H. floresiensis is pretty well accepted, but there are still some holdouts. So far, the remains of about seven individuals have been found, although I think only one skull. The controversy is further fed by the stone artifacts found with the fossil bones, which are more advanced that those typically found in association with pre-Sapiens populations. More excavations will help settle the matter further, but anthropologists almost never agree completely on anything. Don’t expect this issue to ever be “fully settled”.
You can rarely “rule anything out” in science; it’s just a matter of greater of lesser probabilities. I would agree that the probability of it being a microcephalic skull is low.
My familiarity with this is only a half-hour TV show produced a while ago, so I’m wondering, are you basing this on evidence besides the single skull?
Because the ‘statistics’ arguments are based on N=1, which, well, doesn’t seem very persuasive to me.
When you say N=1, do you mean there is only 1 skull? Because there are a number of skull features to be considered when making the determination as to whether or not the skull is microcephalic. Yes, there is a small group of scientists who came to the conclusion that it could be, but there is also a larger group of scientist who think it unlikely. Additionally, the remains of 7 other individuals have been found and those remains do not contradict the hypothesis of very short stature for the hominid.
We undoubtedly have a lot more to learn about this population of hominids. We may even find out that they done derive from H. erectus, but from a more primitive hominid species, as proposed by Debbie Argue in the Journal of Human Evolution (paraphrased here in USA Today):
LB1 is the type specimen for this species (“LB” standing for “Liang Bua”, the name of the cave where the bones were discovered).
There are a number of other features found in the remains of the other indivicuals (which do not include a complete skull) that suggest to me at least that they represent a distinct form, the same as that of the one which includes the skull. Also, the fact that the skull seems to have some features related to H. erectus also suggest to me that it is not merely a microcephalic H. sapiens, as is postulated.
Given this additional evidence, I think it is very improbable that the remains are those of one microcephalic pygmy H. sapiens plus those of other individuals who were only pygmy H. sapiens. I could be wrong, but it seems to me the original discoverers have the basic story right.
I am reminded of the first discovery of a Neanderthal skeleton in the mid-1800s. It was originally argued that it was that of a many deformed by arthritis, or alternatively a Tartar soldier in the Russian Army that had pursued Napoleon. It wasn’t until more skulls were found until the controversy was resolved.
This reminds me of the Pedro Mountain Mummy that was found in Wyoming in the 1930’s. (Skip down to the fourth paragraph in the link above.) I first read about this in one of those Bizarre Mysteries-type books. It was either a severely-deformed infant, or a really really short old man.
My impression is that the so called forced re-thinking of human evolution is, in and of itself, a huge controversy. Maybe moreso than the “Hobbits” themselves. There have been other threads in GQ discussing the need (or lack thereof) for re-thinking basic laws of physics.
Whenever a question of that mangnitude comes along I think it is justifiable to look for every other possible explanation before one decides to revamp something like the theory of evolution. (Even if it is only as it applies to us Homo Sapiens.)
Look, every news story about a new hominid specimen includes as boilerplate “This discovery is forceing scientists to re-think our current understanding of human evolution”. It’s like a federal law or something. It doesn’t matter where the hominid is found or whether it’s a new species, every speciment forces us to rethink human evolution according to the news.
Of course the Flores skeletons force us to rethink hominid evolution, since we’ve never discovered them before. But EVERY specimen that isn’t exactly like previous specimens, or found outside the previously known time or geographic range forces us to “rethink” things.
It’s like if someone spots a coyote in Maine, and no one had seen coyotes in Maine before, the news story says, “The sighting of a coyote in Maine is forcing scientists to reconsider their theories of coyote distribution.” No shit, before we didn’t think coyotes lived in Maine. So we throw out our old theory that there was no evidence coyotes lived in Maine, and come up with a brand-new theory that at least one coyote lives in Maine. And this new theory turns the scientific establishment upside down. Oh, watch those stuffed-shirts scramble!
You sometimes see this kind of thing in cosmology as well. “New theory that the Universe is 12.8 billion years old forces rethinking of the old theory that the Universe is 12.7 billion years old!”
To be fair, it’s not that only journalists who are to blame for always inserting this into their stories to make them more newsworthy. Paleo-anthropologists are an egotistical bunch, and each one seems to think his or her fossil is the one that is going to re-write the history of hominid evolution. You see this particular among the researchers working in pre-Australopitheus afarensis fossils. They’re all sure that their particular fossil represents a direct ancestor of modern humans, but the only reason they seem to think so is that they were the ones to find it and not someone else.
Touché.
I didn’t mean to imply that a terse caption under a single photograph in a thousand word article on the subject could explain away the entire controversy-- such as it is. Of course an article of this nature is going to try to play it up as the discovery of the century.
And, while I understand that the study of human evolution is ongoing and that every new discovery potentially changes everything, I think the implications in this case are more far reaching than, say, the discovery of possible cannibalism in Neanderthals.
also from the link in the OP
Boilerplate or no, the distribution of Homo Sapiens and their ancestors across the planet is an important piece of the puzzle.
Sometimes, you just have to go with your instincts
This discovery was huge. It doesn’t rewrite our history, though, since no one is claiming H. floresiensis to be in our line of descent, but it’s an entirely new species that lived contemporaneously with modern humans. In fact, they lived cheek by jowl with us for a longer period of time than Neanderthals. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say this is the biggest discovery in paleo-anthropology since the discovery of A. afarensis (aka, Lucy) in the early 1970s.
I have to disagree. If we can learn about ourselves by studying Neanderthal, also not in our line of descent as I (mis-?) understand it, then we can learn about ourselves from Homo Erectus and their descendants. Especially if we are inclined-- if not forced-- to reevaluate how and why our intelligence and our big brains influenced our evolution.
I was using “history” in the sense of our evolutionary line of descent. That’s all. Sorry if that was confusing.
Well, it does rewrite the history of human evolution. Any species in the genus *Homo *is “human”, even if we tend to use that term to mean only H. sapiens in the vernacular.
Study using 9 microcephalic skulls for comparison points to the hobbit skull being that of a Homo floresiensis individual, a new species.
As with any primatological debate, today I asked a respected primatologist and family friend for his take on the bruhaha. He’s been reading the various papers being published by colleagues that he knows personally, and while not all of them are in agreement, those that he is more inclined to defer to on such matters are in the “new species” camp.
