An international research team led by Teuku Jacob of the Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia, and including R.P. Soetana of the original reporting team, have investigated the Flores skeletal material again and believe that the bones represent neither a new species nor a devolved Homo erectus, but rather a deformed Homo sapiens. As evidence, the researchers point to several elements of the Flores man that are reflected in the population of Australomelanesians who today live within a kilometer of Liang Bua Cave, called the Rampasasa pygmies.
Physical Affinities with Flores Islanders
The Rampasasa pygmies are taller than the Flores man--their average stature is 1.45 meters, while the Flores individuals are estimated at between 1.06 and 1.09 meters. Some of the dentition and facial morphology of Flores are similar to that of the Rampasasa people; although the cranium is about 1/3 the size of an average villager today.So, Dr. Jacob and his colleagues believe that the LB1 hominin at Liang Bua cave is simply a deformed H. sapiens; and the remainder of the post-cranial fragments found in the cave are simply short versions of the same.
More Questions
Interesting, isn't it? And I must admit that it is somewhat easier to believe although not as exciting, that we didn't share the planet for some 80,000 years with a species we never got round to meeting. But, I have a few questions, questions I must admit never occurred to me before this study.First, when did the modern population of Flores Island get there? The most complete Flores individual is dated to 18,000 years ago; the other seven individuals are said to date between 95,000 and 35,000 years ago. We're told that Homo erectus arrived on the island at least 750,000 years ago, but nothing about the arrival date of Homo sapiens: today the population of Flores Island is over one million.
Secondly, where did the original Australomelanesian folks come from? Part of Jacob et al.'s argument is that the colonization of the island had to have taken place more than once for a population to have survived.
And finally, what did their Pleistocene or early Holocene tool kits look like? There were tools found with the Flores individual; are they similar to those of the original H. sapiens Flores islanders?
Next page: Some answers and a rebuttal.
