Homo Floresiensis: A Surprising Offshoot on the Human Evolutionary Tree
The threatening half-pitchfork silhouette of the iconic lightning-blasted tree; unconsciously newbie genealogists seem to expect their efforts to yield as linear and clear a picture. Longer lasting genealogists, from the hobby-horse rider to the doctorate-decorated historian, realize the picture of even one human family comes closer to resembling a large oak in full summer foliage than it does the classic lightning survivor.
What genealogists know regarding family trees ought to be de rigueur for anthropologists. It would seem a reasonable expectation. Yet, in some fundamental, perhaps merely hopeful way, it seems those who study the human species sometimes expect just such a single-spar-bearing entity, or mainly linear set of results.
Perhaps it is a sort of tunnel vision that allows some students of the human family to expect each piece of evidence found to lead neatly from one one incarnation of hominid species to the next, the overall results thereby resembling the aforementioned lightning victim and not the messy in-full-bloom, twigs crossing and shooting off everywhere summer-time oak. Though in truth, it is the latter which resembles most closely what most trees, real and familial, look like.
Perhaps it is that very scientific, albeit limiting and severe focus, which allows for such a massive hiccup in the scientific community when a creature like Flo comes along.
Flo, short for Homo Floresiensis, the Floresiensis alluding specifically to her home on the Indonesian island of Flores, is a hobbit, though not a Tolkien creation.
A small hominid, the bemused affection which has resulted in those at her dig bestowing her charming and literary nickname upon her takes nothing whatsoever away from the massive head-scratcher she has proven to be to her studiers. Flo is just one of eight similar hominid skeletal remains, located on the island of Flores, discovered between 2003 and 2004 by a team of Australian and Indonesian scientists working together.
It is no accident that the island of Flores falls between Asia and Australia. Scientists involved in the project had high expectations of mapping the migration of humans from Asia to Australia. They did not expect to find an entirely different offshoot of the human family tree. Perhaps they should have spoken to some genealogists first.
Although less than four feet tall, Flo and her fellow hominids, throw a massive spanner in the works of the heretofore anticipated human evolutionary line. To take just a snippet from the riveting tale of the human family as it unravels from an anthropological viewpoint, Neanderthal appears on the scene about 600,000 years ago. Yet, there is evidence to suggest younger versions continued to exist as late as 75,000 to 25,000 years ago. Such a figure definitely allows for some overlap to have existed between the older hominids, the Neanderthals, and our presumed younger and more modern descendants, the Cro-Magnons. This is a presumption born out by the fact that certain Portuguese Cro-Magnon remains show obvious evidence of Neanderthal characteristics. It is also supported by gene studies of modern Eurasian peoples, which suggest breeding occurred at some point between modern humans and Neanderthals.
Clearly, the lineage lines of the human family are not entirely neat and tidy. Perhaps the team of scientists entering Flores anticipated something less than a leaf-covered oak, but more than a lightning-struck tree trunk. Perhaps, they were looking for a portion of a monkey puzzle tree, no pun intended. What they found instead was Flo.
Flo’s remains suggest she existed approximately some 17,000 to 19,000 years ago. Her small stature, a source of some scientific discomfiture all its own, as some thought she may be a modern, albeit disfigured human, has proven to be a characteristic of her species.
While her entire body is small, the proportions of her various skeletal parts are those of an ancient hominid species and not the proportions specific to modern humans. The wrist bones in particular show themselves to be of pre-modern structure.
Another consideration, regarding Flo’s stature, is her locality. Flo and her fellows might have arrived in Indonesia already small. However, dwarfism, of the type that could be attributed to Flo, has also been known to develop in species that remain in isolated locales, such as on an island.
Clearly Flo and her compatriots were of an ancient species, rather than a modern people with a predisposition towards genetic dwarfism. Possessed of a classic early hominid profile, what with her non-existent chin, back-sloping forehead and hunched forward shoulders, Flo had, despite her possession of a very small brain, the ability to make tools, as well as the capacity to hunt and bring down game. She was obviously an early hominid.
What has, however, proven itself jarring to her studiers is the dating of her remains.
While Flo is a modern woman, compared with say some Neanderthal women, she and her fellows are just part of a dig suggesting centuries of tools and hence tool-bearers.
Where are the others?
Why does she appear outside of Asia, or Africa, bearing characteristics that would appear to make her millions of years out of date?
Compelling questions.
However, a final thought, as well as what may be the most startling for many to swallow, is the mind-boggling, yet not at all unrealistic possibility, that modern humans may well have interacted with Homo Floresiensis. Such event would obviously indicate an amount of overlap in human lineages perhaps heretofore unconsidered.
Flo, by her existence has shown scientists, just in case they may have hoped otherwise, that there are still huge gaps in the puzzle of human evolution. Put another way, she reveals that there are many branches and leaves yet to be discovered in the family tree of modern man.
