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May 2008
GW Researchers Link ‘Hobbit’ Fossil to Human Evolution
New evidence uncovered by GW researchers provides support for the existence of “Hobbits,” or Homo floresiensis, a unique human lineage that diverged from our own as long as 1.7 million years ago. Skeletal remains found in Indonesia in 2003 have been dubbed “Hobbit” because of the small stature and brain size of the one individual with a skull. The skeleton indicates that it was a full-grown adult female, but stood at only three feet tall and had a brain about one-third the size of modern adult humans. Scientists have debated whether the remains, which cover a span from before 38,000 years ago to at least 18,000 years ago, represent modern human individuals who suffered from a disorder that caused their small build and small brain size, or a new human species, Homo floresiensis. GW researchers Adam Gordon and Lisa Nevell, together with Bernard Wood, University Professor and director of the hominid paleobiology doctoral program, developed a novel way to compare the shape of the Hobbit’s skull with what the shape of modern human skulls would be like in individuals as small as the “Hobbit.” Using these new methods, they have shown that the Hobbit’s skull is shaped nothing like that of a modern human, whether or not size differences are taken into account. Instead, it is similar to the species Homo erectus and Homo habilis found in Africa and the Republic of Georgia, which are about 1.7 million years old. This result is consistent with the most recent analyses of the skeleton that also suggest it was similar to older species. The GW researchers’ findings appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The thought that these creatures co-existed in time, if not in the same location, with modern humans emphasizes the extent to which evolution can still hold surprises for us,” says Wood. “What’s interesting about this is that the Hobbit doesn’t closely resemble the younger Homo erectus material from Indonesia, arguing for an ancient divergence of this species from the lineage that produced modern humans,” says Gordon, postdoctoral research fellow with GW’s Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology. “We’re looking at a different human lineage that split from our own possibly as much as 1.7 million years ago or more and persisted up to the time when modern humans started peopling the Americas. That’s pretty exciting.”
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