Interesting.....
Mar. 4th, 2005 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
patgund"Virtual" Endocasts of the brain shape are leaning towards H. Floresiensis being a seperate species or subspecies, rather than a deformed or microcephalic H. Erectus.
Inside the Head of the 'Hobbit': Skull study boosts theory tiny fossil was distinct human species
"Detailed comparisons of the skulls of LB1, other hominins (human-like species) and chimpanzees strongly suggest Homo Floresiensis is not a random microcephalic, but instead a distinct -- and now extinct -- species.
"We had a skull of a true microcephalic, and the shape is nothing like what this LB1 fossil brain is shaped like," said study co-author Charles Hildebolt, a professor of radiology and anthropology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He and his co-researchers -- who include the scientists who found LB1 -- now believe, more than ever, that Homo Floresiensis stands alone as a separate species."
Not everyone agrees. Andrew Kramer is an anthropologist at the University of Tennessee who specializes in Homo erectus, another hominin first unearthed in the Indonesian island of Java over a century ago. He was not involved in the Science study.
While Kramer said he never subscribed to the microcephalic theory, he said he leans more toward LB1 as being a dwarfed descendent of Homo erectus, not a unique species. "I always thought it looked an awful lot like erectus, at least the skull did," he said. "And with the [skull-cast] analysis provided in this study, it looks even more so."
Inside the Head of the 'Hobbit': Skull study boosts theory tiny fossil was distinct human species
"Detailed comparisons of the skulls of LB1, other hominins (human-like species) and chimpanzees strongly suggest Homo Floresiensis is not a random microcephalic, but instead a distinct -- and now extinct -- species.
"We had a skull of a true microcephalic, and the shape is nothing like what this LB1 fossil brain is shaped like," said study co-author Charles Hildebolt, a professor of radiology and anthropology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He and his co-researchers -- who include the scientists who found LB1 -- now believe, more than ever, that Homo Floresiensis stands alone as a separate species."
Not everyone agrees. Andrew Kramer is an anthropologist at the University of Tennessee who specializes in Homo erectus, another hominin first unearthed in the Indonesian island of Java over a century ago. He was not involved in the Science study.
While Kramer said he never subscribed to the microcephalic theory, he said he leans more toward LB1 as being a dwarfed descendent of Homo erectus, not a unique species. "I always thought it looked an awful lot like erectus, at least the skull did," he said. "And with the [skull-cast] analysis provided in this study, it looks even more so."
