the "hobbits" of Flores

[rivendellrose]

I've had some good feedback lately about my little forays into anthropology, so... I've decided to keep it up and see what comes, as often as I can. Today, I thought I'd share a few random thoughts on one of the human evolution via the controversies du jour - the status of Homo floresiensis, AKA the "Hobbits" of Flores Island.



Poor Homo floresiensis. It's not bad enough that the individuals whose remains were found in a cave in 2003 have been dead for thousands of years - for the last five years there's been an ongoing debate over whether they were actually a new species or just modern Humans with some kind of bone disorder. They've been accused of dwarfism, microcephaly (the condition whose sufferers were once colorfully - and cruelly - referred to as "pinheads"), and now their unusual body structure is being attributed to "severe nutritional deficiency."

So what's the big deal? They either were Human or they weren't, right?

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Only one nearly-full skeleton (called, for reasons of scientific inscrutability, LB1) was found in the cave, along with the remains of at least eight other individuals. Those other eight would have been partial skeletons. (The trick to partial skeletons is to judge based on the number of distinct bones that any one individual can only have one of - you can hope for a skull, but you're more likely to be counting based on, say, the left tibia. If you've got four left tibia amid a whole bunch of other junk, you've either got four distinct individuals represented among that junk, or you've got a serious problem. ;) Anyway.) The features of that one almost-complete skeleton could be a fluke, or they could be the "worst" of a small population that was diseased or otherwise deficient and had been cut off from 'normal' populations. On the other hand, we don't have enough of multiple skeletons to really be sure that all of them weren't consistent with these variations, which would indicate a different species.

Either way, though - does it really change Humans or Human life now?

I think it could. On a practical level, no, it wouldn't really change the world for us to realize that there was another species of the genus Homo alive during our history, even if the claims that Floresiensis existed up into the 19th century were true, because they do appear to be well and truly gone now. On the other hand, on a purely theoretical basis, it's a huge concept. What if Floresiensis were still around right now? Would they be held in zoos? Would we be arguing over whether or not to conduct medical and psychological experiments on them as an even better alternative to primate testing, or would world governments have to agree that they are too close to Humans not to be given the same full protections and rights as Humans... or would every country in the world be negotiating some sort of line between animal and human to base their treatment on? How would their size play into our reactions - would we treat them like children? Would the result be different if Neanderthals were still around, because of their size and greater build? How would the decision of whether or not to give Floresiensis rights change our feelings about rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, and other primates?

In short, how would having a biological cousin even closer to us than chimpanzees change the way we define the line between "us" and "them," and how would it change the way we look at ourselves as a species? The only thing that would change our perceptions of ourselves more, I think, would be the discovery of intelligent life outside of Earth... and, alas, I'm not holding my breath on that one anytime soon, as much as I'd love to see that day come.


I'll try to get a collection of links going here, but this one from the BBC is a good start:

'Hobbit' human 'is a new species'

Comments

[shoeless-girl.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating! I've never studied anthropology, so it's very interesting to read your thoughts on something that I would approach from an evolutionary biologist perspective.

I would probably claim they were not human, but I can see how that would open up the whole debate of "us" and "them" and whether we were intrinsically "better" and what rights they would have were they around today.

Interesting to think about! I look forward to reading other anth posts :)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd love to hear your opinion of the evidence from a strictly evo-bio perspective - I'm only getting the anthropological perspective, and even when that's focusing on the biology I think we do have a different take in the sense that we're coming at it from the angle of the species being part of the human tree even if it's not to be seen as really "Human."

Thanks! I hope not to disappoint... it'll probably be an irregular thing, but I like the chance to write things up and see what people think of them.

[beam-oflight.livejournal.com]

Yay you wrote more anthro stuff :) This is not the sort of thing I'd go out of my way to find stuff about, but I'm really glad you posted about it, because it's really interesting especially the hypothetical ethical points you raised. Plus you're writing style is really nice to read and makes it all the more interesting :)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the hypothetical stuff was interesting to you - I'd wanted to find some way of making the questions the fossils raise applicable or at least interesting to normal life. Sometimes it's hard to know if I'm headed down the right track on that stuff. :)