A research team led by anthropologist Ralph Holloway at Columbia University has compared brain scans and internal casts, or endocasts of skulls from children affected with dwarfism with unaffected children, and found hobbits to be stunted humans.
Ever since the discovery in 2004 of an 18,000-year-old fossil popularly referred to as the 'hobbit' of Indonesia, anthropologists have remained divided about whether the skeleton represents a species that was distinct from modern humans.
In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Holloway and his research team found that two specific measurements-cerebellar protrusion (how far the base of the brain projects backwards) and relative frontal breadth-could be used to discriminate between microcephalics and unaffected children.
According to CBS News, the team then made similar comparisons between endocasts of skulls of 10 microcephalic humans, 79 unaffected humans, 17 individuals of the human ancestor Homo erectus, 4 individuals from the human ancestor Australopithecus, and the H. floresiensis fossil.
They report that the H. floresiensis cranium overlapped most with the measurements collected from microcephalics and Australopithecus.
The fossil measurements do not fall within the range for normal modern humans or H. erectus but do fall within the range for microcephalic humans, so Holloway concludes that the fossil could have suffered from microcephaly and is not necessarily a separate species.
Source: ANI [August 09, 2011]
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| Homo floresiensis [Credit: Wikipedia] |
In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Holloway and his research team found that two specific measurements-cerebellar protrusion (how far the base of the brain projects backwards) and relative frontal breadth-could be used to discriminate between microcephalics and unaffected children.
According to CBS News, the team then made similar comparisons between endocasts of skulls of 10 microcephalic humans, 79 unaffected humans, 17 individuals of the human ancestor Homo erectus, 4 individuals from the human ancestor Australopithecus, and the H. floresiensis fossil.
They report that the H. floresiensis cranium overlapped most with the measurements collected from microcephalics and Australopithecus.
The fossil measurements do not fall within the range for normal modern humans or H. erectus but do fall within the range for microcephalic humans, so Holloway concludes that the fossil could have suffered from microcephaly and is not necessarily a separate species.
Source: ANI [August 09, 2011]