Anthropology: Shelf Two

On Shelf #2: For a few thousand years, we shared the planet with other human species. The last of the Neanderthals, here represented by La Ferrassie [found in La Ferrassie, France in 1909; ~50-70 kya] and The Teshik-Tash Child [found in Uzbekistan, representing the far eastern end of the area inhabited by Neanderthals], lived until about 26 thousand years ago. The small skull on the left side of the shelf is LB1 popularly known as “Flo” to her discoverer and more commonly to the rest of the world as “The Hobbit” (Homo floresiensis [found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 by archaeologist Michael Morwood; possibly as recent as 12 kya]).

•  Neanderthals first emerge in the fossil record at about 250 kya, and were adapted to the cold of then glacial Europe. They were stockier and more robust than modern humans, who had evolved in the arid heat of Southeast Africa.

•  The species Homo floresiensis seemed to have emerged through a common process by which animals living in relative isolation on islands undergo changes in their size. Members of this species were small, attaining a full adult size of just over 3 feet.

•  Some anthropologists and folklorists who conduct research in Indonesia assert that the so-called Hobbit’s species may be linked to folk memories, preserved in local tales of ebu gogo, that is of small people living in the forests of Flores, leading some to believe (wishful thinking?) that living populations of this species may yet be found.