Ancient Bones of Small Humans Discovered In Palau

seattle-pk writes to let us know about the discovery in the Pacific island nation of Palau of thousands of human bones, some quite diminutive. The find is likely to rekindle the debate about how to classify the remains found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003. "Some of the bones are ancient and indicate inhabitants of particularly small size, scientists announced today. The remains are between 900 and 2,900 years old and align with Homo sapiens, according to a paper on the discovery. However, the older bones are tiny and exhibit several traits considered primitive, or archaic, for the human lineage."

Re:So...

[LithiumX]

It may not be earth shattering, but if there was a species (or subspecies) in the Homo line that could be defined by a radically different form (ie tiny size below anything seen in modern times), that would be interesting.

The human lineage is mostly made up of multiple snapshots, most of whom are probably no direct relation to anyone alive (ie any random Homo skull dug up is more likely than not part of a lineage similar to ours, but not precisely the same). Finding new populations is always fascinating, regardless of relation.

They could just be midgets, but the ratios make that unlikely.

Skull not bones

[edwardpickman]

The point is not bone size but skull shape. The Flores skull is exactly the same as a Homo Erectus with the exception of brain size. The brain size doesn't match proportions of either humans or Erectus. It's possible that Flores broke off from the family tree before Erectus. The disease theories don't take into account all the skull differences. I've seen lots of Erectus skulls and that was my gut reaction the first time I saw it. It looks like an Erectus child except it's an adult skull. No one has explained the differences in the teeth and that can't be caused by brain disease let alone brow and face differences. Pygmies look like regular humans. Flores didn't.