September–October 2014 93Hold your breath. The Hobbits of
Flores faced threats from crocodiles
and Komodo dragons, one of
which is shown here stalking a
small group hidden in the foliage.the Island Rule – across thousands of generations and 1 million
years they gradually shrank to the size of H. fl oresiensis – similar
to what happened on islands with other large-bodied mammals
(such as the dwarf elephants) stranded there. In other words,
a selective pressure towards smaller body size would have been
continuously acting on a H. erectus population on Flores.
Moreover, because the fossil evidence shows that the island
did not have large mammalian carnivores such as hyenas, tigers
or wolves, the advantage of being bigger to defend oneself
from large predators was not necessary. Nor would this group
of hominins have needed a large body size to travel long dis-
tances in search of food – the island is only 60km at the furthest
from north to south, and 300km from east to west. Being big,therefore, was not necessary for the survival of either H. fl oresiensis
or the pygmy elephants, whereas being smaller meant living well
on limited resources.
But nobody, at present, can rigorously test this hypothesis.
Although skeletal body remains of H. fl oresiensis (LB1 is the only
specimen found with its skull) are comparatively plentiful, this
is not the case for H. erectus. So far no H. erectus fossils have been
excavated from Flores, and, despite many of their fossil crania
(mostly just skull-caps) having been found on Java, few other
skeletal remains have been unearthed.
So a thorough comparison between the skeletons of both
species – which would help determine the ancestry of Hobbit- is not yet possible. The search, however, continues.
ag0914_HobbitP93 - 92 2014-08-12T15:57:58+10:00