Scientists Debate the Normalcy of Ancient 'Hobbits'
Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post
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More than 1 1/2 years after discovering a race of ancient, "Hobbit"-like little people on a remote tropical island, scientists still do not know what to make of them. Are they a new species of human ancestor? Or were they modern humans suffering from a debilitating genetic deformity?
In dueling papers being published today by the journal Science, researchers offer fresh insights on both sides, seeking to explain how a 30-year-old female with a grapefruit-sized brain could have appeared 18,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores.
A research team led by primatologist Robert D. Martin, provost of Chicago's Field Museum, argues that no human ancestor could reach a weight of 64 pounds with a brain size of only 23.2 cubic inches and be able to make sophisticated tools such as those found with the Hobbit remains.
The Martin team said the Hobbit must have been a modern human with microcephaly -- a condition, usually genetic, in which the brain fails to grow to normal size. "This brain is too small for any explanation besides pathology," Martin said in a telephone interview.
In a rebuttal to the Martin group, a second team led by Florida State University paleoanthropologist Dean Falk defended its earlier research, contending that the Flores skull was nothing like that of a microcephalic and that the remains most likely represent a previously unknown species.
May 19, 2006
Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post
____________
More than 1 1/2 years after discovering a race of ancient, "Hobbit"-like little people on a remote tropical island, scientists still do not know what to make of them. Are they a new species of human ancestor? Or were they modern humans suffering from a debilitating genetic deformity?
In dueling papers being published today by the journal Science, researchers offer fresh insights on both sides, seeking to explain how a 30-year-old female with a grapefruit-sized brain could have appeared 18,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores.
A research team led by primatologist Robert D. Martin, provost of Chicago's Field Museum, argues that no human ancestor could reach a weight of 64 pounds with a brain size of only 23.2 cubic inches and be able to make sophisticated tools such as those found with the Hobbit remains.
The Martin team said the Hobbit must have been a modern human with microcephaly -- a condition, usually genetic, in which the brain fails to grow to normal size. "This brain is too small for any explanation besides pathology," Martin said in a telephone interview.
In a rebuttal to the Martin group, a second team led by Florida State University paleoanthropologist Dean Falk defended its earlier research, contending that the Flores skull was nothing like that of a microcephalic and that the remains most likely represent a previously unknown species.
May 19, 2006
