We can learn a lot from the discovery of the Homo Floresiensis and Neanderthals species. I will direct the focus of this blog on the Homo Floresiensis. The discovery of the Homo Floresiensis affected how scientists think about fossil record and human evolution. The Homo Floresiensis was very small in height type of species. They were an average height of 3 feet tall. Homo Floresiensis had very long arms and un- arched feet. They could be a direct descendant of some of the first ape-men to evolve in African millions of year ago. Their fossils were found on a small island in Indonesia.  Homo Floresiensis was an isolated species. They lived 100,000 to 50,000 thousand years ago. Scientists have found that the Homo Floresiensis species used tools. This shows a sign of human evolution. Scientist believes that humans evolved from apes. Chimpanzees use tools in order to eat food, open, and break items. We found out that chimpanzees had to learn how to use tools in order to open nuts and other things. This shows us how animal instinct doesn’t always come into play for all animals. Going back to the Homo Floresiensis, part of human evolution came from the evolution of Homo Floresiensis.

 Homo Floresiensis brains were about the same size as chimpanzees, and they were found to hunt animals. They found this out because they found other animal bones with marks on them around Homo Floresiensis fossils. This is another example of how Homo Floresiensis is a part of human evolution. Chimpanzees eat meat sometimes and they would go out and hunt other animals or their own kind in order to eat meat. This shows that we evolved from apes Homo Floresiensis and obtained the ability to eat meat by hunting other animals.

The Homo Floresiensis are short, had long arms, and have un-arched feet. From evolution, humans developed shorter arms, became taller, and most of us have arched feet. Anthropologist found out that they traveled a long distance from where they originated from. This would have been very difficult for them to do this because of their un-arched feet. Human developed arched feet, which makes it easier for us. Homo Floresiensis longs arms were probably used for climbing trees or other objects. Since we don’t need to climb trees, we developed shorter arms.

I think everything that we learned for this week in the lectures and videos we watched, and articles we read plays a big part in the contribution to the study of human diversity. Humans evolved from Homo Floresiensis and Neanderthals. They were both found in different places. They both looked very different from each other and had various sized proportion limbs and brain size. We as humans gained and lost some of their distinct features from those two species. I think what really separated humans from Homo Floresiensis is the flexibility of the modern human brain. Our flexible brains allow us to live in different types of environments, to be creative, and to be flexible.