And then there were three!

Picked this one up on Carl Zimmer’s The Loom . Since the original reports on the Homo floresiensis remains were published in the fall of 2004 (Brown et al. 2004, Morwood et al. 2004, Falk et al. 2005), there’s been a ton of debate as to exactly what they are. On the one hand, the original team claims that these fossils represent a separate species, on the other, several researchers have since claimed on various grounds that at least the published cranium represents a pathological (specifically microcephalic) individual (e.g., Martin et al. 2006; but cf. Falk et al. 2006). So far, the debate has raged on, with no easy resolution in sight.

Now, a third position on those mysterious hominins has been presented by Gary D. Richards, a grad student at Berkeley's Human Evolution Research Center in a review paper "in press" in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Richards’ take is that the Liang Bua remains simply represent a population of healthy, normal humans that fall at the very edge (maybe even beyond the edge) of the ‘small’ range of variation of Homo sapiens. The Loom presents a good discussion of some of the merits and failings of the paper. I haven’t seen any more discussion about this paper on discussion forums or other blogs yet.

The archaeological dimension of this debate also bears discussing as it highlights a number of issues in contemporary Paleolithic archaeology, but I’ll do so in a later post. In the meantime, keep posted to see what kind of treatment this new take on the hobbits will get in the ongoing debate over the ‘hobbits!’

References:

P. Brown, T. Sutikna, M. J. Morwood, R. P. Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wayhu Saptomo, and R. Awe Due. 2004. A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 431:1055-1061.

Falk, D., Hildebolt, C., Smith, K., Morwood, M.J., Sutikna, T., Brown, P., Jatmiko, Saptomo, E.W., Brunsden, B. & Prior, F. 2005a. The brain of LB1, Homo floresiensis. Science 308:242–245.

Falk, D., Hildebolt, C., Smith, K., Morwood, M.J., Sutikna, T., Jatmiko, Saptomo, E.W., Brunsden, B. & Prior, F. 2006. Response to Comment on 'The brain of Homo floresiensis'. Science 312:999c.

Martin, R.D., MacLarnon, A.M., Phillips, J.L., Dussubieux, L, Willians, P.R. & Dobyns, W.B. 2006. Comment on 'The brain of Homo floresiensis'. Science 312:999b.

Morwood, M. J., R. P. Soejono, R. G. Roberts, T. Sutikna, C. S. M. Turney, K. E. Westaway, W. J. Rink, J.- x. Zhao, G. D. van den Bergh, R. Awe Due, D. R. Hobbs, M. W. Moore, M. I. Bird, and L. K. Fifield. 2004. Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia. Nature 431:1087-1091.

Richards, G. D. 2006. Genetic, physiologic and ecogeographic factors contributing to variation in Homo sapiens: Homo floresiensis reconsidered. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 19: in press.