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National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: Morning Edition 10:00 AM EST NPR
March 4, 2005 Friday
LENGTH: 658 words
HEADLINE: Identity of Hobbit discovery causes conflict [DP]
ANCHORS: RENEE MONTAGNE
REPORTERS: CHRISTOPHER JOYCE
BODY:
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
There's new evidence that a species of tiny humans lived as recently
as 13,000 years ago. Last October the skeleton of a three-foot-tall
humanlike creature was found on an Indonesian island. Experts have
been debating whether the creature really is a member of a lost
species of humans or just one of us with a peculiar form of dwarfism.
Brain experts say it is a lost species of human, though they concede
the debate is not over. NPR's Christopher Joyce reports.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE reporting:
Scientists are puzzled by Homo floresiensis. That's the creature's
official name. It also goes by the name Hobbit. Its discoverers say it
found its way to an island and thrived by hunting and making
sophisticated stone tools. Some skeptics say that's impossible. They
point out that the Hobbit had a brain the size of a grapefruit, about
one-third the size of ours. That's not enough brain power to cross
oceans, craft tools and hunt. They say this skeleton really is a
modern human who suffered from microcephaly. Such people have very
small heads and small brains. Anthropologist Dean Falk at Florida
State University has tried to resolve the argument. She got a cast of
the creature's brain. It's like a rubber model of the original brain.
Ms. DEAN FALK (Florida State University): In life the pulsating brain
leaves impressions--you know, it's like a hand in a glove, a
tight-fitting glove. And it leaves impressions in the brain case.
JOYCE: The cast has the brain's shape and even shows its grooves and
convolutions. Falk also had digital reconstructions of the Hobbit's
brain made by scanning the inside of its skull. She compared these to
similar images from a person who had microcephaly and also two brain
images from a pigmy, a chimpanzee, a modern human and our own
predecessor, Homo erectus. One thing was clear. The microcephalic's
brain did not look like the Hobbit's.
Ms. FALK: We get something that is its own creature. It's a really
surprising package of features. Some of these I never thought I would
see in something so small, a brain so small, and suggestive possibly
of higher cognition.
JOYCE: Mostly the Hobbit's brain looks like the brain of our ancestor
Homo erectus. Writing in the journal Science, Falk admits that while
the brain is small, regions associated with higher thinking are
enlarged, which could explain the Hobbit's unexpected smarts. The
experiment has not silenced the doubters who point out that there are
different kinds of microcephaly that Falk has not examined yet. The
Indonesian creature could be one of those. Michael Morwood with the
University of New England in Australia is one of the Hobbit's
discoverers. He says he's had it with the skeptics. In a telephone
conference at the National Geographic Society, which is sponsoring
the brain research, Morwood said a condition like microcephaly would
not explain the Hobbit's other distinctive physical features.
Mr. MICHAEL MORWOOD (University of New England, Australia): Having
that condition doesn't give you primitive crowns on your teeth,
doesn't give you primitive roots on your teeth, doesn't give you arms
that come down to your knees.
JOYCE: The wrangling over this creature's identity is to be expected,
says Richard Potts, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution.
Mr. RICHARD POTTS (Anthropologist, Smithsonian Institution): The
argument reflects the surprise that this finding represents, that the
idea that it's a new species of early human, that it persisted up
until, you know, 18 to maybe even 13,000 years ago, and anything
that's unusual in any scientific field gets especially close scrutiny
and I think this is certainly happened in this case.
JOYCE: Even the question of who gets to look at the skeleton and
parts of seven more still to be analyzed has been in dispute. With
another digging season this summer, the Hobbit's story looks likely
to become an epic. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.
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