Lb1 Research Paper

In 2004 a group of scientists found the partial skeleton of a new human species we had never seen before. Researchers called the remains LB1, also nicknamed the hobbit due to its small size. It was first believed that this new species, Homo floresiensis, was a descendent of Homo erectus that had simply dwarfed over time due to limited access to resources. However, newer studies have highlighted some of the more primitive characteristics of LB1, which lead scientists to believe that the hobbits branched off from the human family tree much earlier than previously thought.
Summary:
Scientists were excavating a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, when they stumbled upon the remains of a small human species. The skeleton they found called
LB1, or the hobbit, is very small in stature and had a smaller brain than would be expected. It was believed that this small species was a descendent of Homo erectus who had undergone “island dwarfing”, which is when a species becomes smaller over time due to scarce resources in their environment and not being able to move to another location. This has been observed in different animal species but never humans.
This caused many skeptics to believe that this “hobbit” was an isolated incident of a modern human with some type of disease that stunted their growth. However, as more studies were completed, LB1 began to look more and more like other primitive, pre-erectus species. For example, LB1 had large feet, long, curved toes, and no arch. These type of feet would not be conducive to running long distances, and they would have to walk differently to keep their feet from dragging on the ground. LB1 also has a very small brain, similar in size to a chimpanzee. However, although LB1’s brain was extremely small, it still had some advanced features that allowed them to make stone tools and create fire. Other bones in the body, such as the wrist, pelvis, and clavicle, also appear more primitive than Homo erectus. However, many of the cranial features would make it appear that LB1 is a member of our genus. Due to the interesting mixture of characteristics, researchers have started to consider that the hobbit may actually have been a more primitive species, rather than one that evolved after Homo erectus. In the Journal of Human Evolution, Debbie Argue and her research team proposed two possible points in time at which the hobbit branched off from the rest of the hominins.
The first possibility is that H. floresiensis evolved after H. rudolfensis but before H. habilis. The second possibility is that H. floresiensis evolved between H. habilis and H. erectus. These theories are important because if either of these are true, the hobbits were not part of our own species as previously thought. Up until this point it was believed that Homo erectus was the first of the humans to leave Africa and colonize new lands. With the new findings on H. floresiensis it now appears that hominins began leaving Africa hundreds of thousands of years earlier than we thought.
Critique:
This article gives us new insight on the course of evolution and migration of primitive humans, and an alternative to the evolutionary path that had been previously agreed upon. I agree with researchers that the hobbit must belong to a more primitive species than Homo erectus, due to the physiological similarities it has to Lucy and other ape-like species. In the article it seems as though many scientists are reluctant to consider alternative theories on the H. floresiensis, since there is still a good number of them who believe the hobbit was simply a modern human with a disease that caused them to be smaller than usual. While there is some evidence that this is possible, it seems more likely to me that this was a new species that evolved prior to Homo erectus, migrated out of Africa, and was able to remain on a singular island where their species survived until fairly recently (18,000 years ago). One of the most interesting things mentioned in the article was that even though the hobbit had a very small brain, they were capable of advanced tasks and made their own weapons, tools, and fire. I am curious to know if any other evidence was found on how advanced H. floresiensis was. To me the biggest unanswered question is when exactly H. floresiensis split off from the rest of the hominins and migrated out of Africa. Why were they the group to leave first, and why did they choose to stop on the tiny island of Flores?