October 28
Charles darwin, you there? Scientists have just discovered a new human species that once lived in the Indonesian island of Flores, and this could radically alter the accepted theory of human evolution. These ‘human hobbits’, standing three feet tall and having tennis ball-sized brains, apparently inhabited Flores where dwarf elephants and giant rats roamed — a time when pre-historic man was busy colonising the world — before dying out less than 18,000 years ago. What the discovery suggests is that the closest living relative of humans is not human at all — it’s an ape.
There was never a simple evolutionary path that led to modern humans, or Homo sapiens. Instead, early humans branched off into several forms. So in a not-too-distant past, two very different human species walked the Earth at the same time. The Flores Man’s physical structure endorses an important scientific theory (even as it trashes another). For the dwarf form of these apemen, who were direct descendants of Homo erectus (a species that predated Homo sapiens), proves the Darwinian process of ‘endemic island dwarfism’ seen in large animals trapped on an island for thousands of years, and undergo genetic isolation.
But the sophistication of the stone tools found with the Flores Man dismisses the popular idea that you need a certain brain size to do anything intelligent. For Flores was never connected to the Asian land mass, and the only way the ‘hobbits’ could have reached the island was if they were smart enough to build bamboo rafts. In other words, small-brained humans could have evolved without losing out on intelligence. Charles Darwin, you there?
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Charles darwin, you there? Scientists have just discovered a new human species that once lived in the Indonesian island of Flores, and this could radically alter the accepted theory of human evolution. These ‘human hobbits’, standing three feet tall and having tennis ball-sized brains, apparently inhabited Flores where dwarf elephants and giant rats roamed — a time when pre-historic man was busy colonising the world — before dying out less than 18,000 years ago. What the discovery suggests is that the closest living relative of humans is not human at all — it’s an ape.
There was never a simple evolutionary path that led to modern humans, or Homo sapiens. Instead, early humans branched off into several forms. So in a not-too-distant past, two very different human species walked the Earth at the same time. The Flores Man’s physical structure endorses an important scientific theory (even as it trashes another). For the dwarf form of these apemen, who were direct descendants of Homo erectus (a species that predated Homo sapiens), proves the Darwinian process of ‘endemic island dwarfism’ seen in large animals trapped on an island for thousands of years, and undergo genetic isolation.
But the sophistication of the stone tools found with the Flores Man dismisses the popular idea that you need a certain brain size to do anything intelligent. For Flores was never connected to the Asian land mass, and the only way the ‘hobbits’ could have reached the island was if they were smart enough to build bamboo rafts. In other words, small-brained humans could have evolved without losing out on intelligence. Charles Darwin, you there?
[more]
[more]