|
Flores
on the News today
Hot
News
Get
the access with the right hand
Shall
a theory about HUMAN EVOLUTION needs to
change??
My
name Peter Paka (originally from Flores
island of Indonesia) received so many
emails questioning me with the new found
ancient human species on my beloved
homeland "Flores Island".
Msn.com opens my mind and brain to start
reading the hot news about this articles.
It kept me first minutes spent to think
and not to believe since I was at the
school learned that the most ancient human
fossils are only found in Java and other
part of the world. But today, Henry Gee of
Nature magazine and Professor Chris
Stringer of London's Natural History
Museum have strongly recommend scientists
to analyze and rewrite the history of
human evolution. My friend Paul Boleng who
was a guide conducting the several
scientist into Liang Bua have been told
that the information he gave me before now
become the world's new.
With
this new human species found not far from
our Flores houses, It may raise a question
SHALL A THEORY ABOUT HUMAN EVOLUTION needs
to change????
|
3FT TALL (90 CENTIMETER-TALL)
Scientist on their press conference said
the ancient adult female skeleton
measures 3ft tall or 90cm tall found in
a cave is believed 18,000 years old. It
smashes the long-cherished scientific
belief that our species, Homo sapiens,
systematically crowded out other
upright-walking human cousins beginning
160,000 years ago and that we've had
Earth to ourselves for tens of thousands
of years. It wakes up our mind that
AFRICA, the acknowledged cradle of
humanity, does not hold right answer on
question of how - where - we came to be.
"This finding really does rewrite
our knowledge of human evolution,"
said Chris Stringer, who directs human
origins studies at the Natural History
Museum in London. "And to have them
present less than 20,000 years ago is
frankly astonishing."
Shortest member of human family
Scientists called the dwarf skeleton
"the most extreme" figure to
be included in the extended human
family. Certainly, she is the shortest.
She is the best example of a trove of
fragmented bones that account for as
many as seven of these primitive
individuals that lived on the equatorial
island of Flores, located east of Java
and northwest of Australia. The mostly
intact female skeleton was found in
September 2003.
Scientists have named the extinct
species Homo Floresiensis, or Flores
Man, and details appear in Thursday's
issue of the journal.
The specimens' ages range from 95,000 to
12,000 years old, meaning they lived
until the threshold of recorded human
history and perhaps crossed paths with
the ancestors of today's islanders.
Flores Man was hardly formidable. His
grapefruit-sized brain was two-thirds
smaller than ours, and closer to the
brains of today's chimpanzees and
transitional pre human species in Africa
than vanished 2 million years ago.
Yet Flores Man made stone tools, lit
fires and organized group hunts for
meat. Bones of fish, birds and rodents
found near the skeleton were charred,
suggesting they were cooked.
All this suggests Flores Man lived
communally and communicated effectively,
perhaps even verbally.
"It is arguably the most
significant discovery concerning our own
genus in my lifetime," said
anthropologist Bernard Wood of George
Washington University, who reviewed the
research independently.
Discoveries simply "don't get any
better than that," proclaimed
Robert Foley and Marta Mirazon Lahr of
Cambridge University in a written
analysis.
Questions over classification
To others, the species' baffling
combination of slight dimensions and
coarse features bears almost no
meaningful comparison either to modern
humans or to our larger, archaic
cousins.
They suggest that Flores Man doesn't
belong in the genus Homo at all, even if
it was a recent contemporary. But they
are unsure where to classify it.
"I don't think anybody can
pigeonhole this into the very
simple-minded theories of what is
human," anthropologist Jeffrey
Schwartz of the University of
Pittsburgh. "There is no biological
reason to call it Homo. We have to
rethink what it is."
For now, most researchers have been
limited to examining digital photographs
of the specimens. The female partial
skeleton and other fragments are stored
in a laboratory in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Researchers from Australia and Indonesia
found the partial skeleton 13 months ago
in a shallow limestone cave known as
Liang Bua. The cave, which extends into
a hillside for about 130 feet (40
meters), has been the subject of
scientific analysis since 1964. Fenced
off and patrolled by guards, it is
surrounded by coffee farms.
Older stone tools and other artifacts
previously found on the island suggest
that Flores Man is part of a substantial
archaic human lineage.
"So the 18,000-year-old skeleton
cannot be some kind of 'freak' that we
just happened to stumble across,"
said one of the discoverers, radiocarbon
dating expert Richard G. Roberts of the
University of Wollongong in Australia.
Peculiar environment
But the environment in which Flores Man
lived was indeed peculiar, and
scientists say it probably contributed
to the specimen's unusually small
dimensions.
Researchers from Australia and Indonesia
found the partial skeleton 13 months ago
in a shallow limestone cave known as
Liang Bua. The cave, which extends into
a hillside for about 130 feet (40
meters), has been the subject of
scientific analysis since 1964. Fenced
off and patrolled by guards, it is
surrounded by coffee farms.
Older stone tools and other artifacts
previously found on the island suggest
that Flores Man is part of a substantial
archaic human lineage.
"So the 18,000-year-old skeleton
cannot be some kind of 'freak' that we
just happened to stumble across,"
said one of the discoverers, radiocarbon
dating expert Richard G. Roberts of the
University of Wollongong in Australia.
Peculiar environment
But the environment in which Flores Man
lived was indeed peculiar, and
scientists say it probably contributed
to the specimen's unusually small
dimensions.
Millennia ago, Flores was a kind of a
looking-glass world, a real-life
Middle-earth inhabited by a menagerie of
fantastical creatures like giant
tortoises, elephants as small as ponies
and rats as big as hunting dogs.
It even had a dragon, although they were
giant lizards like today's carnivorous
Komodo dragons rather than the
treasure-hoarding Smaug described by
novelist J.R.R. Tolkien in his
"Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
Artifacts suggest that a big-boned human
cousin, Homo erectus, migrated from Java
to Flores and other islands, perhaps by
bamboo raft, nearly 1 million years ago.
Researchers suspect that Flores Man
probably is a descendant of Homo erectus
that was squeezed by the pressures of
natural selection.
Dwarfism in nature
Nature is full of mammals - deer,
squirrels and pigs, for example - living
in marginal, isolated environments that
gradually dwarf when food isn't
plentiful and predators aren't
threatening.
This is the first time that the
evolution of dwarfism has been recorded
in a human relative, said the study's
lead author, Peter Brown of the
University of New England in Australia.
Just how this primitive, remnant species
managed to hang on is uncertain.
Inbreeding certainly would have been a
danger. Geologic evidence suggests a
massive volcanic eruption sealed its
fate 12,000 years ago, along with other
unusual island species like the dwarf
elephant species, stegodon.
Now, scientists are more puzzled by the
specimen's jumble of features that
appear to be borrowed from different
human ancestors.
Clues from the skeleton
This much is clear: Its worn teeth and
fused skull show it was an adult. The
shape of the pelvis is female. The skull
is wide like that of Homo erectus. But
the sides are rounder and the crown
traces an arc from ear to ear. The skull
of Homo erectus has straight sides and a
pointed crown, they said.
The lower jaw contains large, blunt
teeth and roots like Australopithecus, a
prehuman ancestor in Africa more than 3
million years ago. The front teeth are
smaller and more like modern human
teeth.
The eye sockets are big and round, but
unlike other members of the Homo genus,
it has hardly any chin or browline.
The rest of the skeleton looks as if it
walked upright, but the pelvis and the
shinbone have primitive, even apelike
features.
Bones from the species' feet and hands
have not yet been found. Delicate
artifacts found in the cave were
described as "toy-sized"
versions of stone tools made by Homo
erectus. They suggest that Flores Man
retained intelligence and dexterity to
flake small weapons with sharp edges,
even if its body shrunk over time.
"I've spent a sleepless night
trying to figure out what to do with
this thing," said Schwartz.
"It's a mind-blower. It makes me
think of nothing else in this
world."
Even more speculative is whether Flores
Man met with modern humans, and what
might have happened.
Folklore experts have reported
persistent legends of little people
living on Flores and nearby islands.
Islanders called the creature "Ebu
Gogo" and say it was about 3 feet
tall.
THANKS TO EVERY SCIENTIST WHO INVOLVED
IN THIS DISCOVERY
Where
is it located?
Flores
island lies between East of Bali and
North of Australia. It is a neighbor
island of Timor and few miles from the
new state (Timor Leste).
click
here
to
view may of flores island
How
to get there?
Get the international flight from any
cities from any part of the world to fly
to Bali (the most favorite) vacation
destinations then from here
Komodotours.com & Bali-Travel-Online.Com
can manage you to explore recent new
found site.
Bali-Travel-Online.Com
recommends special expedition trip to
Flores Island:
>> 5days Komodo - Rinca - Liang
Bua US$567/person depart from Bali
>> 7days Komodo - Liang Bua - Lake
Kelimutu US$775/person depart from Bali
We will not publish the detail itinerary
and only sent to the confirmed
reservation by email or fax. Submit
your booking here
|
|
|
