Hobbit toolmakers

[celee]

Some interesting news about 850 kya hobbit tools on frontpage of:   

                                              www.une.edu.au

Announced in today's 'Nature' also.

Best Regards

Celee

[Daryl Habel]

Some interesting news about 850 kya hobbit tools on frontpage of:   

                                              www.une.edu.au

Announced in today's 'Nature' also.

Best Regards

Celee

Thanks, Celee.

From news@nature.com: CLICK HERE.

Old tools shed light on hobbit origins
Tiny toolmaker or microcephalic? The 'hobbit' debate continues.
Michael Hopkin

They may have been tiny, but the hobbits of the Indonesian island of Flores are still the focus of the biggest controversy in anthropology. The latest twist in the tale suggests that these one-metre-tall hominids, with a brain the size of a grapefruit, were the final members of a tool-making tradition stretching back more than 800,000 years. But amid fresh doubts over the species' evolutionary history, the idea that the curious creatures were deformed modern humans refuses to go away.....
(snip part of story)
....In Nature this week, a separate line of evidence points to H. floresiensis as a tool-maker. More than 500 stone blades found on Flores and dated to more than 700,000 years ago seem to have been made in the same way — by striking stones to chip off large flakes — as the more recent blades found with the hobbits.....

The full article in Nature is

Letter
Nature 441, 624-628 (1 June 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature04618; Received 1 August 2005; Accepted 1 February 2006

Early stone technology on Flores and its implications for Homo floresiensis
Adam Brumm1, Fachroel Aziz2, Gert D. van den Bergh3, Michael J. Morwood4, Mark W. Moore4, Iwan Kurniawan2, Douglas R. Hobbs5 and Richard Fullagar6

Abstract: In the Soa Basin of central Flores, eastern Indonesia, stratified archaeological sites, including Mata Menge, Boa Lesa and Kobatuwa (Fig. 1), contain stone artefacts associated with the fossilized remains of Stegodon florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and various other taxa. These sites have been dated to 840–700 kyr bp (thousand years before present)1. The authenticity of the Soa Basin artefacts and their provenance have been demonstrated by previous work2, 3, 4, 5, 6, but to quell lingering doubts7, here we describe the context, attributes and production modes of 507 artefacts excavated at Mata Menge. We also note specific similarities, and apparent technological continuity, between the Mata Menge stone artefacts and those excavated from Late Pleistocene levels at Liang Bua cave, 50 km to the west. The latter artefacts, dated to between 95–74 and 12 kyr ago8, 9, are associated with the remains of a dwarfed descendent of S. florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and a small-bodied hominin species, Homo floresiensis, which had a brain size of about 400 cubic centimetres10, 11. The Mata Menge evidence negates claims that stone artefacts associated with H. floresiensis are so complex that they must have been made by modern humans (Homo sapiens)7.

Available at: CLICK HERE.  Although the article itself is available here only to subscribers of Nature, it  has been making the rounds if you know where to look.  A note for non-subscribers: If you look on the right-hand side of the abstract page, there are icons reading, "Figures and Tables" and "Supplementary info", which lead (free) to additional content.  The "Figures and Tables" are identical to those in the Brumm et al. article which is rather brief, consisting only of 5 pages. 

Brumm et al. (2006:628) conclude:

  "The stone artefact assemblages from [800,000-year-old] Mata Menge and the Pleistocene levels [<95,000-year-old] of Liang Bua are remarkably similar"........."The most parsimonious explanation for this is that the stone artefacts from Mata Menge and Liang Bua represent a continuous technology made by the same hominin lineage.  Pronouncements that H. floresiensis lacked the brain size necessary to make stone artefacts (17) are therefore based on preconceptions rather than actual evidence."

Well, OK if you say so.  My thoughts on this are that while it is easy to agree with the perceived "similarity" of the MM and LB artefacts, the technology does not seem, IMO, so distinctive as to conclude with certainty that the artefacts were manufactured by the "same hominin lineage".  Or, for that matter, a "different" hominin lineage. There's still that approximately 700,000-year "gap" at Flores with no archaeological evidence.

"Most parsimonious" does not "prove" anything.

Dar 

[lagarvelho]

Dar:

I downloaded the article and saw the pictures.  Which were, uh, interesting.  Unfortunately, as usual, I haven't had the time to read the article, so I can't comment.  But given what has gone before, I'm not sure that the article will be particularly enlightening one way or another.
Anne G

[celee]

Some interesting news about 850 kya hobbit tools on frontpage of:   

                                              www.une.edu.au

Announced in today's 'Nature' also.

Best Regards

Celee

Does new stuff scare some of you guys.  Never mind, all will come to pass.

Moderator note:  As posted originally by Celee, the comment above was buried in small print along with other previously posted  "quoted" material.  I've taken the liberty to modify the "quotes", in order to make the new comment easier to find.  Dar

Thanks, Celee.

From news@nature.com: CLICK HERE.

Old tools shed light on hobbit origins
Tiny toolmaker or microcephalic? The 'hobbit' debate continues.
Michael Hopkin

They may have been tiny, but the hobbits of the Indonesian island of Flores are still the focus of the biggest controversy in anthropology. The latest twist in the tale suggests that these one-metre-tall hominids, with a brain the size of a grapefruit, were the final members of a tool-making tradition stretching back more than 800,000 years. But amid fresh doubts over the species' evolutionary history, the idea that the curious creatures were deformed modern humans refuses to go away.....
(snip part of story)
....In Nature this week, a separate line of evidence points to H. floresiensis as a tool-maker. More than 500 stone blades found on Flores and dated to more than 700,000 years ago seem to have been made in the same way — by striking stones to chip off large flakes — as the more recent blades found with the hobbits.....

The full article in Nature is

Letter
Nature 441, 624-628 (1 June 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature04618; Received 1 August 2005; Accepted 1 February 2006

Early stone technology on Flores and its implications for Homo floresiensis
Adam Brumm1, Fachroel Aziz2, Gert D. van den Bergh3, Michael J. Morwood4, Mark W. Moore4, Iwan Kurniawan2, Douglas R. Hobbs5 and Richard Fullagar6

Abstract: In the Soa Basin of central Flores, eastern Indonesia, stratified archaeological sites, including Mata Menge, Boa Lesa and Kobatuwa (Fig. 1), contain stone artefacts associated with the fossilized remains of Stegodon florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and various other taxa. These sites have been dated to 840–700 kyr bp (thousand years before present)1. The authenticity of the Soa Basin artefacts and their provenance have been demonstrated by previous work2, 3, 4, 5, 6, but to quell lingering doubts7, here we describe the context, attributes and production modes of 507 artefacts excavated at Mata Menge. We also note specific similarities, and apparent technological continuity, between the Mata Menge stone artefacts and those excavated from Late Pleistocene levels at Liang Bua cave, 50 km to the west. The latter artefacts, dated to between 95–74 and 12 kyr ago8, 9, are associated with the remains of a dwarfed descendent of S. florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and a small-bodied hominin species, Homo floresiensis, which had a brain size of about 400 cubic centimetres10, 11. The Mata Menge evidence negates claims that stone artefacts associated with H. floresiensis are so complex that they must have been made by modern humans (Homo sapiens)7.

Available at: CLICK HERE.  Although the article itself is available here only to subscribers of Nature, it  has been making the rounds if you know where to look.  A note for non-subscribers: If you look on the right-hand side of the abstract page, there are icons reading, "Figures and Tables" and "Supplementary info", which lead (free) to additional content.  The "Figures and Tables" are identical to those in the Brumm et al. article which is rather brief, consisting only of 5 pages. 

Brumm et al. (2006:628) conclude:

  "The stone artefact assemblages from [800,000-year-old] Mata Menge and the Pleistocene levels [<95,000-year-old] of Liang Bua are remarkably similar"........."The most parsimonious explanation for this is that the stone artefacts from Mata Menge and Liang Bua represent a continuous technology made by the same hominin lineage.  Pronouncements that H. floresiensis lacked the brain size necessary to make stone artefacts (17) are therefore based on preconceptions rather than actual evidence."

Well, OK if you say so.  My thoughts on this are that while it is easy to agree with the perceived "similarity" of the MM and LB artefacts, the technology does not seem, IMO, so distinctive as to conclude with certainty that the artefacts were manufactured by the "same hominin lineage".  Or, for that matter, a "different" hominin lineage. There's still that approximately 700,000-year "gap" at Flores with no archaeological evidence.

"Most parsimonious" does not "prove" anything.

Dar 

[Daryl Habel]

Does new stuff scare some of you guys.  Never mind, all will come to pass.

Speaking only for myself, no, new stuff doesn't scare me.  However, I am skeptical of any claim of technological continuity manifested by a single hominin lineage (H. floresiensis) over a period of 800,000 years when it begins (in the Soa Basin) with no fossil hominin evidence for identity and incorporates a 700,000-year chronological gap with no archaeological evidence.  Admittedly possible that, sometime in the future, it  "will come to pass", but for now.....

Regards,
Dar