Re: Importance of Flores Overstated?

From: Daryl Habel (Dar_83001_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/05/04 

Date: 5 Nov 2004 11:23:23 -0800

"firstjois" <firstjoisyike@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<WY6dncXswoD1ThfcRVn-ow@comcast.com>...

> Thanks, Dar, I think this is fascinating stuff but it's not going to change
> all the text books on evolution. Wonder if some old Dutch sailing logs
> might have some info hidden away!
>
> Jois

Well, it will, at the very least,in some small way, certainly change
some text in paleoanthropology books. Evolutionary theory can
accomodate LB1, so that's not going to be re-written. Do we just
accept that LB1 is an insular dwarf erectine derived Homo? Even if
LB1 is not a dwarfed H. erectus, it is something that has to be
explained. Is the 380 cc brain pathological? Is it some kind of
cryptozoic extant Asian ape, maybe now extinct? Certainly there were
normal-sized H. sapiens seafarers in the Flores vicinity by 18,000
years ago, who could have been responsible for the sophisticated tools
(and, possibly, the death of LB1). If the 380 cc brain is not
pathological, and LB1 is some kind of Homo, it has by far the smallest
cranial capacity known for our genus. Someone will have to rewrite the
books on how LB1 came into existence. I'm not satified with the
Myotragus brain-size reduction explanation, and I've seen Ralph
Holloway's initial reaction on Anne G.'s Yahoo palanthsci group, so I
know I'm not alone with this uneasy feeling.

Is the importance of Flores overstated? I don't think we really can
answer that yet. There's been an incredible amount of hype that has
accompanied this find, but very little in the way of comparative
anatomical analysis included in the few pages of the Nature (Brown et
al. 2004) journal article. I view this all as preliminary, so far.
Best,
Dar

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