Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries Brian Haughton (an ebook reader .txt) 📖

extinct pygmy elephant), Komodo dragons, and a larger lizard. The discovery of pieces of firecracked rock and charred bone in levels containing hominid skeletal materials suggests that the Floresians knew how to control fire. Another significant find in the cave was a relatively sophisticated stone tool assemblage, including small blades which could have been mounted on wooden shafts. Some of the stone tools were found in direct association with the Stegodon, which suggests that the Floresians were hunting them.

The team published their amazing findings in October 2004 in the science journal Nature. The conclusions they drew from the discoveries on Flores were incredible, to say the least. It was announced that a new species of tiny humans, which they named Homo floresiensis, had been discovered. The researchers also thought it possible that this species had survived on the island of Flores into historic times. The original skeleton became known as the Little Lady of Flores (or LB1) and the species nicknamed hobbits, from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books. All the individuals were about 3-feet tall, with long arms, and grape

fruit-sized skulls. They were fully bipedal, but had an extremely small brain size (about a third of that of modern humans and slightly smaller than a chimpanzee). They made sophisticated tools, hunted miniature elephants, and were living at the same time as modern humans who were colonizing the area. The researchers concluded that the Floresians were not a pygmy form of modern humans, but a scaled down form of Homo erectus, the eastern relation of European Neanderthals who were wiped out by modern humans around 30,000 years ago. Homo erectus also disappeared from the record just before modern humans arrive in their territory.

One important question about the find is how the researchers account for the small size of Homo floresiensis. One theory is that the island of Flores is particularly isolated and, before modern times, was inhabited only by a limited group of animals that had managed to reach it. These animals subsequently became subject to unusual evolutionary forces that drove some toward gigantism-the giant lizard or Komodo dragon (which still survives today), and reduced the size of othersthe pygmy elephant (Stegodon) for example. The team think that Homo floresiensis were descendents of Homo erectus, who may have arrived on Flores by 840,000 years ago; isolated on the island, they gradually evolved their tiny physique, undergoing the same adaptive process that reduced the size of the elephants. The small size may well have been evolved due to the shortage of resources on Flores.

The completely unexpected discovery of Homo floresiensis is widely considered the most important of its kind in recent history. This new member of the genus Homo could even change our understanding of human evolution. For example, we are inclined to believe that sophisticated tool manufacture requires a large brain. But the minute brain possessed by the Lady of Flores challenges this, and suggests that researchers need to question previously held assumptions regarding the intelligence and capabilities of our tiny-brained ancestors. One of the original discoverers, Dr. Michael Morwood, even believes that the Floresians may have had a primitive language which they used to communicate during elephant and giant lizard hunts. But others disagree, and point to the fact that chimps and even wolves can hunt cooperatively without the use of language.

The Flores discovery also challenges the conventional wisdom that humans have roamed the Earth alone since Neanderthals died out about 30,000 years ago. The Floresians managed to survive long into the modern period and, unlike the majority of the other archaic human populations, were able to coexist with modern humans. This means that two different human species, Homo sapiens and Homo floresiensis, were living parallel lives on Earth at the same time. However, although modern human remains have been found on Flores, the earliest is only 11,000 years old, so the two species need not have been around at the same time on the island.

Reactions within the scientific community and beyond were almost as extreme as the discovery. Chris Stringer, head of human origins at

London's Natural History Museum, said "many researchers (myself included) doubted these claims," and added that nothing could have prepared him for the surprise of the tiny Floresians. He also speculated that the long arms possibly suggested that Homo floresiensis spent a lot of time in the trees. "We don't know this. But if there were Komodo dragons about you might want to be up in the trees with your babies where it's safe."

There were, and still are, many who disagree strongly with the conclusions drawn from the finds in the Liang Bua cave. Indonesia's foremost paleoanthropologist, Teuku Jacob, has claimed that LB1 was not a member of a new species at all, but belonged to the Austrolomelanesid race of modern humans, and was thus merely 1,300 to 1,800 years old. Jakob and several other prominent researchers believe that that the bones are really those of a modern human (Homo sapiens), most likely a pygmy with the brain defect known as microcephaly. It has even been suggested that the bones belong to ancestors of the modern day pygmy inhabitants of the Flores village of Rampasasa, close to the Liang Bua cave site. Microcephaly is a pathological condition characterised by an unusually small head and brain, and frequently associated with mental difficulties. In support of this theory, anatomist Maciej Henneberg has claimed that the LB1 skull is almost identical to that of a microcephalic example from Crete. However, Peter Brown, the main contributor to the original Nature article, and an associate professor at the University of New England in New South Wales, rejects this explanation. He reasons that very few humans with this condition actually reach adulthood, and that microcephalic skulls display a range of distinctive features, none of which are found in LB 1. Brown also states that as there are now bones from Liang Bua representing nine individuals, all sharing the same tiny features, it is much more difficult to propose that a