THE 'HOBBIT' DIDN'T HAVE DOWN SYNDROME
- Ibone Thate Arrazola
- 4 nov 2016
- 2 Min. de lectura
There has been a scientific controversy surrounding the misterious origin of the small 'Man of Flores' since its fossils were found 2003 in a cave of the Island of Flores, Indonesia. Was this hominid just a Homo sapiens with Down syndrome or maybe something more interesting?
In a recent study published in PLOS ONE and lead
by Karen Baab, scientists disagree with the hypothesis that the found fossil, which was called 'fossil LB1', suffered under trisomie 21. This statement was denied after comparing physical features of the 'Man of Flores' with the ones that shows a person with the genetic disease. They could see that the brain of this Homo was bigger. Furthermore, the skull vault's and the chin's forms were different from the ones from Homo sapiens, with or without Down syndrome. The individual was smaller in height and the femur was extremely undersized in comparison to its feet and arms. Karen Baab's team concluded that this evidence was enough to prove that the Homo floresiensis was a different species with its own evolutionary history.
A second article that was published in Nature deals with the study done by scientists in sedimentary rocks from Mata Menge, also placed in the Island of Flores. There, they found fossils that could belong to the ancestors of the 'Man of Flores', rests with at least 700.000 years of antiquity. This discovery was important in order to understand how the early human dispersion of the species happened in this region, but also to underline that the Homo floresiensis isn't an ill Homo sapiens.
There are two hypothesis that explain its small size. On the one hand, the possibility that the 'Hobbit' went through evolution during the first 300.000 years, being a lineage derived from the Homo erectus. On the other hand, the possibility that its lineage was the first arriving to the Island of Flores, even before other hominids. This would mean a founder effect, the evolutionary development of a species in a small surface as the little Island of Flores.
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