This small hand bone belonged to an ancient human who was about a meter tall

A fragment of a 700,000-year-old hand bone has shed light on the origins of the first human species known as the hobbit.

A small piece of bone from the first hobbit (Homo floresiensis) individual, which researchers estimate was only 100 centimeters long.

This was 6cm smaller than its descendants, which lived 60,000 years ago.

Although this change in height was unexpected to archaeologists, the discovery of the new bone and teeth solves the long-standing question of its whereabouts. H. floresiensis come out

The study, published in Nature Communications, found unique dental features that link the hobbit lineage to the tall Javanese. A standing man older, than the shorter African Australopithecus – also known as Lucy – or A man with hands.

The latest hobbit discoveries

H. floresiensis it first appeared in an archaeological report in 2003 with the discovery of a nearly complete, 106-centimeter female skeleton in Liang Bua, a cave on the western tip of Flores Island in Indonesia.

The find is about 60,000 years old and, along with the discovery of fossils in the same cave, raised questions about where these early humans came from.

In 2016, archaeologists found fossils – this time, some teeth and part of a jaw – on a different part of the island called Mata Menge.

Dated 700,000 years ago, these fossils also bear signs of H. floresiensisbut the absence of bones elsewhere in the body made it difficult to draw conclusions about the size of these ancient specimens.

Now the discovery of a partial upper arm bone, the smallest adult arm bone in the fossil record to date, and two other teeth Mata Menge has revealed this. H. floresiensis Man was only 100cm tall when he died.

This surprised archaeologists.

They expected earlier examples of H. floresiensis being taller than their more recent, reflective counterparts H. erectus ancestor, Griffith University archaeologist Adam Brumm said.

A little bit of everyone H. floresiensis fossils are explained by what is called “island dwarfism” or “insular dwarfism”.

It is an evolutionary process seen in the life forms of people living on islands that sees small species such as birds and insects grow, while larger ones, including humans and elephants, shrink.

But that doesn’t explain why the hobbit appears to have shrunk shortly after breaking away from its larger self. H. erectus ancestor – who inhabited Java 800,000 to a million years ago – and grew a little more than hundreds of thousands of years apart from Flores.

“This is what we are trying to fix,” Professor Brumm said.

“There may be some natural size variation within the population. It may be male and female, males may be larger than females in size.” bodies.”

He speculates that the environment on the island at the time the ancient specimens lived may have made small size an advantage, and that conditions may have changed slightly when the small fossils were found.

That question is unlikely to be answered until more fossils from between 700,000 and 60,000 years old are discovered, he said: “We just have to keep digging in the hope that we will find more and more. remains.”

Dental genealogy tips

Another new discovery is linked H. floresiensis more clearly to H. erectus.

The first one is small H. floresiensis Fossils were found in Liang Bua in 2003, it was thought that the first man might have come from African people, like Australopithecussaid Susan Larson, a professor of anatomy at Stony Brook University in New York, who was not involved in the study.

“This was surprising, because we don’t know about early dispersal events out of Africa.

“There didn’t seem to be many parts that were actually made A standing man a better form of ancestors.”

But these new findings, especially the teeth, show clear evidence of the hobbit’s H. erectus lineage.

“It’s very fortunate that the teeth and jaws appear to be healthy, because they clearly reflect taxonomy,” Professor Larson said.

“The teeth have a lot of little grooves and ridges that seem to have a purpose, but they also seem to be very specific species so you can gather a lot of information about heritage as well as function.”

The eternal mystery is how the gods are H. floresiensis, despite their size, they reached the island of Flores first. A large body of water separates the Southeast Asian mainland from Flores, Professor Brumm said.

There is no evidence that any of these early people built boats or ships, so, he said, some people were probably drawn to the sea by clinging to floating plants, “then, rarely, they some of them survived and ended up in these remote areas of the sea. islands where they were successfully diverted.”

There are also questions about what and how H. floresiensis it should have discussed before A wise man in place, Professor Brumm added.

“Our species would have encountered these and the most recent remains of these early hominins when they first reached these islands on their way to Australia.”

There is evidence in the genetic makeup of modern humans in this region that suggests there may have been genetic overlap between the two species.

“It’s a fascinating part of the world and a little-known chapter in the human story,” Professor Brumm said.