Читать книгу Introducing Anthropology - Laura Pountney - Страница 21

Sometimes referred to as ‘the Hobbit’, due to its diminutive stature, Homo floresiensis was an early human who is thought to have lived until 12,000 years ago. Fossilized remains were first discovered in 2003 in the Liang Bua cave, on the Indonesian island of Flores. Researchers were surprised to find that the first set of remains belonged to a 106-centimetre-tall adult female. The remains comprised a nearly complete skull as well as a skeleton, along with at least eight other similarly sized sets of remains. It is now thought that Homo floresiensis may have lived from 95,000 years ago until around 12,000 years ago. There is some debate about how this early human emerged, with evidence recently suggesting that it evolved from an earlier human related to Homo erectus, a 1.8 million-year-old relative. In terms of culture, researchers also uncovered basic stone tools and animal remains in the Liang Bua cave. They postulate that island (or endemic) dwarfism occurred, whereby Homo floresiensis lacked predators, which accounts for their unusual size.

endemic dwarfism A process whereby some creatures confined to isolated habitats such as islands are known to have become smaller