Unearthed Bones
History is essential to mankind as it shapes the present. We live in a world so rapid, where progress seems outrageous, that we are so contained and anxious about where we’re going- and not- where we came from. In order to understand our future, we need to understand our past, because our past, will serve as the rearview mirror that will guide us to our future. People seemed to have overlooked this concept and the importance of our history. We may not have been part of their age but we in certain are the descendants of them.
According to humanorigins.si.edu On the island of Flores, Indonesia remains one of the most recently discovered and unearthed early humans that has been found (2007), Homo Floriensis (nicknamed ‘Hobbit’ from the movie). It was when a joint Indonesian-Australian research team found a nearly complete female skeleton of a tiny human that lived estimated about 80,000 years ago- in Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia. Based on their research, these individuals stood approximately 3 feet 6 inches tall, had tiny brains, large teeth for their small size, shrugged-forward shoulder, no chins, receding foreheads, and relatively large feet due to their long legs. The skeleton’s unique trait such as its small body and brain size led the scientists to assign the skeleton to a new species, Homo Floriensis, named after the island where it was discovered.
When researchers first unearthed H. floresiensis, they also uncovered stone tools and animal remains in the same sediment layers of the Liang Bua cave. The tools were simple, resembling the earliest and most primitive types of tools in the fossil record. The animal remains included those of Komodo dragons, rats, bat and Stegodon (an extinct, pigmy elephant) juveniles. The Stegodon remains showed evidence of cut marks, suggesting H. floresiensis butchered the animals, while charred bones and fire-cracked rocks suggest the hobbits harnessed fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmJEwY4iW0Y
Flores is a heavily forested tropical island with mountain peaks reaching over 2000 meters. The environment during H. floresiensis’ time would have been similar. The nature of their environment and the limited food sources typical of such islands provide strong clues to the evolution of H. floresiensis. When a small population becomes separated, changes can occur very quickly. This particular environment favors reduced energy requirements with dwarfing a response to this. Several dwarf species, including Stegodon, have been recovered on Flores and other small islands (suggests also that it may have been the cause of H. florienses small features).
“The specimens have skulls that resemble something that died a million years earlier, and other body parts reminiscent of our three-million-year-old human ancestors, yet they lived until very recently — contemporaries with modern humans.” University of Minnesota anthropology professor Kieran McNulty.
But the story was about to take a little twist when researchers, in recent findings in January 2016, they discovered evidence this hobbit had a relative living on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi (The island of Sulawesi lies between Flores and continental Asia).
Stone tools, sharp artifacts, and stone flakes were also discovered in the place and studies suggest that an unknown lineage of toolmakers once lived there.
“There might have been a totally different human species living on Sulawesi before modern human (homo Erectus )arrived with boats around 50,000 years ago,” said study lead author Gerrit van den Bergh, a paleontologist and zooarchaeologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia. “Evolving under isolation on an island under hundreds of thousands of years in isolation, and suggests that they may have interbred, the outcome may have resulted in a distinct human species, different from Homo erectus or Homo floresiensis.”
These are the earliest signs of hominins seen on Sulawesi yet, the researchers said.
Previous analysis of rock art in southwestern Sulawesi revealed that modern humans, Homo sapiens, lived on the island at least 40,000 years ago. These new findings suggest that an unknown lineage of hominins predated the arrival of modern humans on Sulawesi.
The researchers said that undiscovered evidence of ancient hominins may be found on other islands in the region, such as Borneo and the Philippines. Such fossils and artifacts could help solve the evolutionary mysteries of Indonesia.
The evolution of the ancient people of Indonesia has become quite a mystery as to when certain uncovered evidence also leads to another finding.
Because no human fossils of the same age as these newfound artifacts have been found on Sulawesi, the identity of these toolmakers remains uncertain.
The makers of the said ancient tools haven’t been given named yet.
