To answer some of my questions about the new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Flores Man, I contacted Robert Eckhardt, the corresponding writer for Jacob et al., and posed my questions to him. While his answers weren't as detailed as I could wish (I need to chase down some more references, clearly), they are of interest, because they indicate that I didn't understand the key issue at Flores Island. When did the modern population of Flores Island get there?
Robert Eckhardt: We think that contact occurred over a very long period, sporadically, since there is no convincing evidence that Flores was effectively isolated.
Where did they come from?
Robert Eckhardt: Various parts of the region at different times. The Malay Peninsula has small-bodied humans, as do the Andaman Islands, etc. Our PNAS paper gives references that lead into this literature. Small human skeletons have been recovered there (on Flores) since the mid-1950s.
What were their Pleistocene/Early Holocene tools like?
Robert Eckhardt: Again, I'll have to direct you to the literature. There are various traditions, including the microblades from the Liang Bua Cave, the earlier tools from other localities, etc.
If you're going to argue that LB1 is simply a short, deformed local resident, who else was on the island?
Robert Eckhardt: Because we think that the evidence is quite good that Flores never was effectively isolated for long periods of time, it is likely that the island has had genetic contributions over the millenia at multiple times from different populations in the region.
A Rebuttal
It seems clear based on Eckhardt's responses, that the key issue at Flores is not (as I thought) the characteristics of the current population or even the early Homo sapiens population as a whole, but whether the island was sufficiently isolated to permit evolution of a separate species. And, apparently, this is the sticking point that many other paleoanthropologists find with Dr. Jacob and colleagues's findings. Said paleoanthropologist Russell Ciochon, "Jacob et al. ... argue that the island of Flores was not large enough to support a hunter-gatherer population over 40,000 generations. If Flores was large enough for two different Stegodon species to survive on the island for far more than 40,000 generations for each lineage, I do not see why Homo erectus could not have done the same."Further, adds Ciochon, the Komodo dragon is known to have evolved only on Flores and three small islands off its western shore and nowhere else. "If Flores was being repeatedly visited in the Pleistocene as Jacob et al. maintains... endemic species such as Varanus komodensis would certainly spread outside of Flores to greater island Southeast Asia (or would have fallen victim to extinction from competition with an invading species)."
The Flores Island hominid, whether it is a new species or merely a Homo sapiens, will clearly be the focus of scientific study for years to come.
More on Flores
- Pygmoid Australomelanesian Homo sapiens skeletal remains from Liang Bua, Flores: Population affinities and pathological abnormalities, Jacob et al., in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and now available online
- Is Flores Man a Deformed Homo Sapiens?, read more about the article and find more sources
- Is this the end for Homo floresiensis?, John Hawks' take on the matter
- Report Reignites Feud over the "Little People of Flores", in the New York Times
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