Editor's Summary
13 October 2005
Flores hominins multiply
The discovery of a small-bodied hominin from the late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia, caused a great deal of interest. Its classification as a new species was controversial, but now there is more evidence for the endemic human species, Homo floresiensis. The remains excavated at Liang Bua on Flores include another tiny adult mandible, 15,000 years old, and the right arm bones of the original find, known as LB1. The new findings confirm the presence of a long-term dwarfed population from before 74,000 to 12,000 years ago and argue against the idea that LB1 was an individual with a growth disorder. There is also evidence for the use of fire, and butchery of the mammoth-like Stegodon.
News: More evidence for hobbit unearthed as diggers are refused access to cave
Excavations shed light on lifestyle of Homo floresiensis.
Rex Dalton
doi: 10.1038/437934a
News and Views: Palaeoanthropology: Further fossil finds from Flores
New fossil discoveries on Flores, Indonesia, bolster the evidence that Homo floresiensis was a dwarfed human species that lived at the end of the last ice age. But the species' evolutionary origins remain obscure.
Daniel E. Lieberman
doi: 10.1038/437957a
Letter: Further evidence for small-bodied hominins from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia
M. J. Morwood, P. Brown, Jatmiko, T. Sutikna, E. Wahyu Saptomo, K. E. Westaway, Rokus Awe Due, R. G. Roberts, T. Maeda, S. Wasisto and T. Djubiantono
doi: 10.1038/nature04022
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