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'Hobbit' probably a new human species
WASHINGTON - A partial skeleton of a one-metre-tall creature discovered in 2003 in an Indonesian cave and nicknamed 'the Hobbit' is probably a new, dwarf species of human, said a study out on Thursday.
A team of scientists reached the conclusion after analysing the skull of the estimated 18,000 year-old skeleton, one of several unearthed two years ago on the eastern Indonesian island of Flores.
Although their conclusion is debated by some scientists, the skeleton, probably of a mature woman, was given the scientific species name Homo floresiensis, after the island.
Scientists nicknamed the skeleton 'the Hobbit' after the diminutive title character of a book by fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien, author of 'The Lord of the Rings.'
Scientists from the US, Australia and Indonesia compared the skull to those of humans, chimpanzees and other human ancestors to determine whether it was simply a pygmy form of human, a person whose growth was stunted by a growth disorder, or an entirely new species.
Their conclusions were released on Science Express, the online edition of the US journal Science.
After creating a detailed three-dimensional model of the skull using computer tomography, the scientists reconstructed the likely features of the Hobbit's brain, and then compared them with other hominid brains and skulls.
Impressions of the woman's brain left on the skull gave strong indications that the skeletons were human.
Comparisons with pygmy skulls, and with the skulls of humans who had suffered the brain growth-stunting affliction microcephaly, revealed few similarities, leading scientists to conclude it was a new species.
The Hobbit was one of seven skeletons, which scientists date in a range of 95,000 to 12,000 years ago, dug up in different layers of earth in the Flores cave.
The discovery has excited anthropologists, who had believed that, after the extinction of Neanderthals 30,000 years ago, Homo sapiens was the only existant human species. -- AP
