Discovering the Hobbit
When the authoritative British weekly scientific journal Nature published its final edition for October in 2004, its cover story created a sensation that continues to reverberate around the world. The article detailed the discovery in 2003 of a one metre tall human skeleton on an Indonesian island called Flores by a team of archaeologists led by UOW’s Professor Mike Morwood (formerly at UNE) and Professor R.P. Soejono from the Indonesian Research Centre for Archaeology.
The excavation team initially thought the fossilised remains, discovered in a large limestone cave known as Liang Bua, were of a child or a dwarf. However, further analysis revealed that the skeleton was of a woman around 30 years of age, who had prominent brow ridges, no forehead, no chin, two bone shelves inside the mandible, a brain size of about 400 cc, long arms and relatively short legs, flared hip bones, and very long feet. Some of these primitive traits have previously only been found in much earlier hominin species in Africa - for instance, in the 3.2 million year old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton known as ‘Lucy’.
To determine the age of the skeleton, the excavation team turned to world-renowned dating expert Professor Richard ‘Bert’ Roberts from UOW’s GeoQuEST Research Centre. Professor Roberts and his colleagues, Dr Chris Turney and Dr Kira Westaway, used a variety of dating techniques including radiocarbon, luminescence, uranium-series and electron spin resonance to show that the skeleton was around 18,000 years old.
The discovery of remains from at least 12 other individuals of similar stature and body proportions from at least 95,000 years ago, indicated that the skeleton was part of a population of ‘little people’. On the basis of all this evidence the archaeologists formed a startling conclusion – the skeleton represented a new human species.
Since the publication of the Nature article the skeleton, scientifically labelled Homo floresiensis but nicknamed the ‘Hobbit’, has been hailed as one of the most significant palaeoanthropological discoveries in the past century.
Based on earlier research, Professor Morwood and Professor R.P. Soejono believe the ‘Hobbit’ may have derived from an ancestral population of an early human species, such as Homo erectus or a more ancient lineage of extinct hominid which arrived in Central Flores about 880,000 years ago.
“Homo floresiensis were the height of a three-year-old child, weighed around 25 kg and had a brain smaller than most chimpanzees,” explains Professor Morwood. “Even so, they used fire, made sophisticated stone tools, and hunted Stegodon (a primitive type of elephant) and giant rats. The clear implication is that, despite tiny brains, these little humans were intelligent and almost certainly had language.”
Almost certainly the first hominins on Flores arrived via a natural rare event, such as a tsumnmai or flood washing a group of people out to sea on a tree, and there are recent precedents for this.
But perhaps most fascinating of all, the research team learned of local stories on Flores that suggested the ‘little people’ may have existed on the island right up to the 16th century, when Dutch traders arrived in the “Spice Islands”.
Even though Professor Roberts, Dr Turney and Dr Westaway have established that the most recent fossil remains in the cave are 12,000 years old, the team has not ruled out the possibility that the hobbit-sized humans could have survived until relatively recently.
The project, as funded by the Australian Research Council with additional support from the UOW, also has an emphasis on younger participants getting training, publication and educational opportunities.
The National Geographic Society is also a sponsor and has filmed a documentary, which aired globally and in the United States on the National Geographic Channel.
More Information: http://www.uow.edu.au/science/eesc/geoquest/
