Flores Hobbits from 800,000 years ago?

[Marc Washington]

I was browsing through old notes and came across a Science (or Nature – I forgot to include which journal) article of sea-faring nearly 800,000 years ago from Africa to Flores. Below a datable layer of lava were found stone tools for cutting and scrapping showing signs of butchery. The journey was both long, required journey through treacherous straights, and in places, very deep waters.

Ann Gibbons, Ancient Island Tools Suggest Homo erectus Was a Seafarer, 279:5357, pp. 1635-1637, Issue of 13 Mar 1998.

Might the hobbit remains of Flores have been descendents from that early date and means of transport?

Marc Washington

[Daryl Habel]

I was browsing through old notes and came across a Science (or Nature – I forgot to include which journal) article of sea-faring nearly 800,000 years ago from Africa to Flores. Below a datable layer of lava were found stone tools for cutting and scrapping showing signs of butchery. The journey was both long, required journey through treacherous straights, and in places, very deep waters.

Ann Gibbons, Ancient Island Tools Suggest Homo erectus Was a Seafarer, 279:5357, pp. 1635-1637, Issue of 13 Mar 1998.

Might the hobbit remains of Flores have been descendents from that early date and means of transport?

Marc Washington

I have some serious reservations about this claim.  Firstly, it's doubtful that the 800,000-year-old tools on Flores were manufactured by seafaring "Africans."  More likely by hominins who, in some way (not necessarily by "seafaring"), island-hopped from mainland Southeast Asia via Java.  Secondly, there are no 800 ka hominin fossils from Flores, so we don't know the species that made the tools.  Thirdly, there is absolutely no archaeological continuity that connects the 800 ka Flores evidence with the earliest archaeology reportedly associated with Homo floresiensis at about 95 ka (a gap with no evidence for ~700,000 years).  Moreover, there is real evidence for only one small-brained hominin (LB 1).  While the other 5 or 6 individuals show evidence of small stature, LB 1 is the singular piece of evidence of a small brained individual.  So the 'microcephalic' sapiens debate currently remains open as an alternative explanation for LB 1. 

Although, the scenario laid out by Ann Gibbons is possible, there is a paucity of evidence to support it.  As things now stand, there are several hypotheses that purport to explain the Flores evidence, but none are overly compelling, IMHO.

Dar

[Rokcet Scientist]

They walked to Flores, imho.
Exactly like they walked to Europe, Australia and (from two sides!) to the Americas.

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

They walked to Flores, imho.
Exactly like they walked to Europe, Australia and (from two sides!) to the Americas.

With all due respect, Rokcet Scientist, the Forum can certainly do without your rambling ‘humble opinion’ on this.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[Marc Washington]

Hi. Below is an article from National Geographic published a few days back that does not preclude the substantive relationship between the Flores tools and those of the toolkit 800,000 years earlier. And, while not skeletons have been found in layers between the 800,000 year-old remains and those of the Flores, the possibility always remains that either remains will yet be found or that that small population of people travelled to nearby islands and carried on the toolmaking tradition unbroken between the ancient and more modern finds. The NG article follows:

"Hobbit" Island Tools Predate Modern Humans, Study Says National Geographic News, May 31, 2006

Long before the dawn of modern humans, relatively sophisticated tools were being made on the Indonesian island of Flores, a new study says. Scientists who believe the creatures to be a separate human species have dubbed them Homo floresiensis. Their Lord of the Rings nickname comes courtesy of their height-about 3.3 feet, or 1 meter. Discovered in 2004, the hobbits survived until about 12,000 years ago, and stone implements have been found alongside remains that date from about that time. But new analysis of strikingly similar tools found at a nearby site called Mata Menge has dated the Mata Menge implements to 800,000 years ago, according to the study. The similarity suggests that H. floresiensis humans-who had tiny, grapefruit-size brains-were capable craftspeople who inherited their toolmaking tradition from ancestors who evolved on Flores, researchers said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060531-hobbits.html


Marc W.

[Daryl Habel]

Hi. Below is an article from National Geographic published a few days back that does not preclude the substantive relationship between the Flores tools and those of the toolkit 800,000 years earlier. And, while not skeletons have been found in layers between the 800,000 year-old remains and those of the Flores, the possibility always remains that either remains will yet be found or that that small population of people travelled to nearby islands and carried on the toolmaking tradition unbroken between the ancient and more modern finds. The NG article follows:

"Hobbit" Island Tools Predate Modern Humans, Study Says National Geographic News, May 31, 2006
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060531-hobbits.html

Peter Brown, the physical anthropologist primarily responsible for the attribution of the new species, Homo floresiensis, has been quoted HERE about those who disagree with the discovery team's conclusions, saying, “Some people see exactly what they want to see.”

This criticism works both ways.  With regards to the comparison of the 800,000-year-old Mata Menge assemblage and the >95-12ka Liang Bua assemblage,  it is true that nothing precludes their suggestion of a technological continuity  by a single hominin lineage (proposed to be H. floresiensis and its ancient  800,000-year-old ancestors).

Quoting from the National Geographic website you reference above:

Both sets of tools—from the Liang Bua cave and the older Mata Menge archaeological site—share hallmarks of simple but sophisticated flaking and shaping, according to Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at the Australian National University in Canberra.

True enough, as far as this statement goes. However, the use of  "but sophisticated" is a subjective observation which biases the fact that the two assemblages share only  "hallmarks of simple..(subjective observation omitted) flaking and shaping."  These assemblages can be termed "sophisticated" only if compared with other assemblages, which they are not!!!

The proposed similarity between the two assemblages, according to Brumm et al., consists of two arguments. 

Firstly, the perceived similarity of the "perforators" illustrated HERE.  These "perforators" have a point, but do they really look similar enough to demonstrate a technological continuity uniquely shared for the (archaeologically missing) period of 700,000 years  between Mata Menge and Liang Bua?   I doubt it.  The technology of these  "perforators"  is not uniquely shared by Mata Menge and Liang Bua, but exists in countless chronologically variable Oldowan-like assemblages worldwide.

True, technological continuity is not precluded,  but is it convincingly demonstated?  Not really. 

Secondly, Brumm et al. propose "both assemblages show an emphasis on the use of volcanic/metavolcanic fluvial cobbles as raw materials, along with the transportation of flake blanks for use as cores. Core reduction strategies at Mata Menge and Liang Bua are also very similar, with special emphasis on freehand reduction of cores both bifacially and radially. In fact, small, invasively reduced radial cores from the two sites are virtually indistinguishable."(Brumm et al. 2006:627).

Again, technological continuity is not precluded, but is it convincingly demonstrated?  Not really.   This Mode I core reduction is, as the National Geographic story points out, simple flaking and shaping and can be found in countless other chronologically varied Mode I assemblages worldwide.

We are told that the sample numbers in these "remarkably similar" (Brumm et al. 2006:628) assemblages is >500 artifacts from Mata Menge and >3000 artifacts from Liang Bua. If, amongst all these artifacts,  this is the best demonstration of  "technological continuity" that can be shown, admittedly, "technological continuity" cannot be precluded but, on the other hand, it also is not convincingly demonstrated that this "technological continuity" is shared uniquely by H. floresiensis and its ancient ancestors.

It seems as though the detractors of H. floresiensis are not the only folks who "see exactly what they want to see".   To some extent, this quote also applies to the argument for "a continuous technology made by the same hominin lineage" (Brumm et al. 2006:628). 

I can accept the possibility of the Brumm et al. proposal as a hypothesis to be tested.  I cannot accept it as convincingly demonstrating a unique continuous technology made by the same hominin lineage.   

Dar