For my blog I am choosing to focus on the species Homo floresiensis and how the discovery and analysis of their fossils has affected what we know about human evolution and diversity. Homo floresiensis was a species located on the isolated islands of Flores, Indonesia. This species is very unique due to its isolation from the mainland and also its distinct differences between the other species of its time. The H. floresiensis dates back to around 100,000 years ago which fits in around a time when many species existed together. What is odd about the floresiensis is that it is much smaller than the other species of the time, standing around 3 feet tall. This was around the same size as the Australopithecus afarensis which existed much longer before it. It also had similar features to “Lucy” in that it had longer arms. The most notable difference was the small brain size which measured in at around 380-400 cc. This brain was very small compared to the homo sapiens and neanderthals which existed around the same time. Contrary from their small brain size, they were able to use stone tools and there is even evidence that they were able to hunt other animals. These indicate much more advanced behaviors than species with similar brain sizes.
What strikes me as interesting is the fact that they were located so isolated from the rest of the mainland. In one of the articles it mentioned how remarkable it was that this species was able to live in isolation for this long and cited it as the longest period of isolation in our known history. The fact that this species were able to survive with much smaller brain capacity amazes me. After studying the species more it was determined that this species was a branch of the Homo erectus and had evolved to appear different after the long periods of isolation. This sheds light on information about how far the erectus was able to spread and maybe describes what a parallel pathway would have looked like if the Homo erectus continued to survive.
I think the biggest contribution this discovery delivers to our knowledge of human diversity is that there is still so much more to be learned. This species could have gone undiscovered due to its isolation and I believe there are many more species that will be discovered and provide more information about our evolution. I would like to know more about if there were any interactions between species like this and homo sapiens that existed at the time. We have knowledge regarding interactions between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens but I would be interested to know if Homo sapiens had made their way to the isolated islands that the floresiensis inhabited or if there were other landlocked species similar to the floresiensis that would have interacted with Homo sapiens. The silver lining to researching these interesting topics is that much of the information we will unfortunately never know. However, I really enjoyed learning about how we are able to gather so much information from fossils and essentially recreate the behaviors of some species from them.
Hi! Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge and opinions that you have gained from this week.I also thoroughly enjoyed this weeks topic on all the information we learned. I also wrote mine on Homo Floresiensis and completely agree with everything you said. I definitely enjoyed how you included that the species could have gone undiscovered because of isolation because I also discussed how the contribution of finding the Homo Floresiensis helped our knowledge of human diversity. Although, I do wonder if there truly is a silver lining of what we will never know. Because every day we are discovering new information. Though, how do we know that we ever missed out on information if we never truly know what we are looking for, or what we expect to find as anthropologists?
I found it very interesting too that Homo Floresiensis were able to use stone tools. This made me think about human evolution. Chimpanzees use tools in order to open items, eat food, and break down materials. Humans use tools to make tasks easier to do too. The reason why I’m bringing this up is because animals that are not humans have an animal instinct that allows them to do things without actually learning how to do them. Humans don’t have animal instinct and we have to learn how do everything. After learning that chimpanzees had to learn how to use tools this made me see that humans and apes really do have a connect with each other. In my opinion, this shows that humans really did evolve from apes.
Hi Sean! I enjoyed reading your post about the species of hominin, Homo floresiensis. It is crazy to think that these smaller, more primitive-looking creatures are in some way related to us. I found the Homo floresiensis use of stone tools to be very interesting because it teaches us that our brains and larger brains, in general, are not the only ones capable of crafting and using stone tools to increase our success. The discovery that this species was a branch of Homo erectus is also intriguing because it teaches us that Homo erectus must have traveled far and reached many parts of the world, and possibly some that we still may not have found. Overall, I agree that finding a species like Homo floresiensis is simply an indication that we have much more to learn about the various species of hominin that have inhabited the earth.