Homo floresiensis

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Homo floresiensis
The LB1 fossil from Homo floresiensis

The LB1 fossil from Homo floresiensis

Temporal occurrence
Young Pleistocene
approx. 100,000 to 60,000 years
Locations
Systematics
Human (Hominoidea)
Apes (Hominidae)
Homininae
Hominini
homo
Homo floresiensis
Scientific name
Homo floresiensis
Brown et al. , 2004

Homo floresiensis ("Man of Flores ") is an extinct, small-stature species of the genus Homo . Thebone finds discoveredin September 2003 on the Indonesian island of Flores and assigned to this species were first described in2004to an age of around 18,000 years. From this dating it was deduced that while the neighboring islands had been inhabited by modern humans ( Homo sapiens )for several thousand years, a second homo species still livedon Flores. In 2016, however, a new dating of the finds was published, according to which the bones are not younger than 60,000 years.

How closely the relationship between Homo floresiensis and other species of the genus Homo is is controversial among anthropologists and paleoanthropologists . By its discoverers was Homo floresiensis in 2004 as a so-called insular dwarfism phylogenetically of Homo erectus derived. Other researchers suspected that it could have been a pathologically altered population of Homo sapiens . The most recent findings - including a renewed exact description of all bones of the skull - "indicate that Homo floresiensis was a clearly distinguishable species".

Naming

The name of the genus Homo is derived from the Latin homo [ ˈhɔmoː ], dt. Human. The epithet floresiensis refers to the location of the type specimen on the Indonesian island of Flores. Homo floresiensis therefore means “Man of Flores”.

Is next to the scientific name inspired by Tolkien's also the term "diminutive fantasy creatures, jokingly Hobbit " as a nickname used; the researchers had initially used the nickname Flo .

Because of the morphological features, which differ greatly from all known hominine fossils, the discoverers chose the species name "Sundanthropus floresianus" in the first draft of their first description. In the course of the peer review, however, the reviewers appointed by the journal Nature pointed out that the LB1 skull was very similar to the skull variants within the genus Homo . In addition, “floresianus” in English is reminiscent of “flowery anus” (for example: “flowery anus ”), a harmony that one wanted to avoid. Because of these expert objections , the revised version of the first description finally published by Nature in October 2004 was chosen to be Homo floresiensis .

Initial description

Skull and lower jaw of Homo floresiensis LB1 ( replica )

According to the first description, the holotype of Homo florensiensis is the first hominine fossil found in the Liang Bua cave, LB1. The new type of hominini defined on the basis of LB1 was supported by an individually found front jaw tooth from the area of ​​a left lower jaw, the fossil LB2.

The skull (archive number LB1 / 1) and the lower jaw were recovered from LB1 in 2003. There were also two thigh bones , two shins , two calf bones , two kneecaps , some hand and foot bones, fragments of the pelvis , vertebrae and sacrum , ribs , shoulder blades and collarbones .

The combination of the anatomical features appeared unusual: the internal cranial volume and body size were reminiscent of the ape-like australopithecines from Africa, while numerous other features of early representatives of the genus Homo . The obvious assumption that it was a Homo sapiens whose short stature was the result of a hormonal disorder was rejected: no signs of IGF-1 deficiency, pituitary short stature or microcephaly were found . The location, an island always surrounded by water, made a so-called island dwarfing likely. The ancestors of the new species would then have been larger individuals of the genus Homo from the Pleistocene ; Finds of Homo erectus from the neighboring island of Java , known as the Java man , were named.

discovery

The location of the Indonesian island of Flores and the course of the Wallace Line
The Liang Bua cave in 2007, where the bones were discovered in 2003 (right in front of the exit, right next to the then cave wall).

In the center of the Indonesian island of Flores in mid Been 1950s and early 1960s by Theodor Verhoeven and in 1994 and 1997 by Paul Sondaar in the field of reference on the upper reaches of the river Ae Sissa, Mata amount in the Soa Basin , stone tools have been discovered. The age of these tools was determined on the basis of a zirconium fissure trace dating to 880,000 (± 70,000) to 800,000 (± 70,000) years BP. With reference to studies by G. Philip Rightmire on the spread of the genus Homo in the Old Pleistocene , it was assumed that the manufacturer of the tools must have been people of the species Homo erectus . The dating was controversial, however, as the island of Flores is two degrees east of the Indonesian continental shelf (east of the Wallace line ) and was therefore always surrounded by the sea even in the Pleistocene . At that time, Homo erectus was not trusted to build watercraft and it was therefore assumed that the island chain east of Java was first settled by Homo sapiens .

In order to secure the dating, Indonesian scientists looked for fossil evidence of hominini during the early Pleistocene on Flores in the following years . In the mid-1990s, the Australian archaeologist Mike Morwood initiated an Australian-Indonesian research cooperation , motivated by the goal of reconstructing the path of the first immigrants from mainland Asia to Australia. For this purpose, the Liang Bua cave was also explored from 2001 onwards , in which various animal fossils had already been recovered in 1965. Under the direction of Mike Morwood and Thomas Sutikna (Indonesian Center for Archeology, Jakarta ), the completely preserved skull of a short, upright hominine individual was discovered on September 2, 2003 , “with an internal skull volume and stature (body size) similar to that - or smaller than - Australopithecus afarensis . “The fossil was known as LB1 . Most of his bones were discovered on an area of ​​only 500 square centimeters in the following days, including the lower jaw belonging to the skull , various large tubular bones in a partially preserved natural arrangement in the area of ​​the joints and some stone tools. These stone tools were similar to those known from older layers of Flores, but were much smaller and looked "as if they were made for very small hands" (in the original: "as if fitted to tiny hands").

The bones turned out to be extremely brittle, as they were neither petrified nor coated with calcium carbonate : “They had about the consistency of wet blotting paper, ” Mike Morwood described the find. After exposure, the bones were initially left to dry for three days, then soaked with glue and only transported to Jakarta after it had hardened to examine them more closely.

On October 28, 2004, the day its first description was published in the journal Nature , the media reported that a "hobbit" was found. Bernard Wood described the skeletal remains in the journal Science as the most important paleoanthropological discovery of the past fifty years.

More finds

The excavators found the remains of a total of at least 14 individuals in the Liang Bua cave, which are attributed to Homo floresiensis . They also found remains of charcoal in the layers with hominine fossils , so Homo floresiensis probably used fire. Stone tools made of volcanic stone and flint were also found : mostly simple cuts that were worked on both sides, but also spearheads, cutters, punches and small knives. Bones of a Komodo dragon , a now extinct, unusually large marabou ( Leptoptilos robustus ) and the remains of at least two dozen specimens of a now extinct dwarf form of the proboscis genus Stegodon were also discovered .

The Wolo Sege site is about 100 km away from Liang Bua , near the Mata Menge site in the Soa basin , which has been known for a long time . There you found markings whose age in 2010 was given as 1.02 ± 0.02 million years; this finding was assessed as further evidence of a very early settlement of the island and thus of a potentially long-term possible "dwarfing" of early hominini on Flores.

Stone tools between 118,000 and 194,000 years old discovered on the island of Sulawesi , north of Flores, also show the presence of early homo populations in this region.

In June 2016, hominine fossils from the Mata Quantity site were described that came from at least three individuals: the fragment of the lower jaw of an adult and six individual milk teeth from at least two children. The finds were dated to an age of around 700,000 years and - since they are even more delicate than the more recent finds of Homo floresiensis - for the time being not ascribed to a specific species, but initially only interpreted as a possible ancestor of Homo floresiensis . The finds show great similarities with both Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis and support the assumption that Homo floresiensis was an island dwarf of Homo erectus .

features

Homo floresiensis combines "a unique combination of Homo-ergaster - similar skull and tooth characteristics" with peculiarities in the area of ​​the pelvis and thighs, as well as with archaic carpal bones, which were unknown until its discovery.

Investigations by paleoanthropologist Peter Brown in 2004 showed that the first and most complete find (the fossil LB1 ) was the remains of an approximately 30-year-old woman who was a little over a meter tall and had an estimated body weight of 16 to 29 Possessed kilograms; the gender was derived from the shape of the pelvic bone, the age was estimated based on the wear and tear of the teeth. The other findings show that the small size of LB1 was not an individual anomaly, but was the average size of Homo floresiensis . A body height of 97.5 cm was reconstructed for the fossil LB8, from which a tibia has been preserved.

At the same time, in 2004 a brain volume corresponding to the Australopithecina of only around 380 cm³ was reconstructed (for comparison: chimpanzees approx. 400 cubic centimeters). In 2013 this reconstruction was revised on the basis of computed tomographic images and calculated for the brain volume of 426 cm³; this is only just under half of the brain volume that is ascribed to a Homo erectus (approx. 860 cm³). At least half of this reduction in the size of the brain compared to Homo erectus can be attributed to the much smaller body size of Homo floresiensis ; up to 50 percent of the reduction - according to the speculation of the authors of the study - was therefore caused by environmental influences.

The shoulder girdle of Homo floresiensis was less similar to that of anatomically modern humans, but more to the shoulder of Homo erectus .

In 2004, after taking impressions in Teuku Jacob's laboratory, damage was found to the pelvis of LB1. In addition, the lower jaw had broken into several parts and, unlike the condition when the fossil was found, had been restored, and one incisor was missing.

skull

Skull of LB1 (left, replica) compared with a microcephalic skull of Homo sapiens

The features of the head were mainly determined on the basis of the slightly deformed skull and the lower jaw of LB1, which were damaged in the area of ​​the nose and the left eye socket, and the lower jaw bone LB6 was also used.

According to the descriptions, the skull is very small, the face, which is also very small, is oriented vertically (no prognathy as, for example, in Australopithecus afarensis ), and the forehead is relatively high. In contrast, the skullcap is relatively flat; it is similarly thick-walled as in Homo erectus and Australopithecus and almost spherical. There is a small, curved eyebrow bulge above the circular eye sockets . What is unusual in comparison with Homo sapiens is an opening just behind the incisors through which nerves run from the nose to the roof of the oral cavity. In addition, the bone that separates the nostril and mouth is extremely narrow compared to Homo sapiens , and the first lower premolar has 2 roots ( Homo sapiens: 1). Overall, however, the construction of the chewing apparatus resembles the morphological conditions in Homo and shows no adaptations that are characteristic of Australopithecus . Due to the "mosaic of original , unique and derived features" unknown until 2004 , the hominin finds from the Liang Bua cave were described as a separate species.

This interpretation of the findings is based on repeated computer-aided investigations of the skull, the first of which was published in 2005 by Dean Falk (Florida State University). Falk analyzed so-called virtual endocasts , computer simulations of brain surfaces based on the inner skull surfaces and the inner volume of the skull. Accordingly, the brain of Homo floresiensis resembles the brain of Homo erectus , but not the brain shape of modern humans who have been diagnosed with microcephaly ; In 2007 and 2009 this interpretation of the findings was confirmed.

In early 2009, another study by researchers at Stony Brook University found that the skull was more similar to fossils from Africa and Eurasia than to modern humans. The asymmetry is also no greater than that of other human relatives (such as modern monkeys) and does not have to be explained by microcephaly. The same group of researchers argued in a similar way after they had again examined the properties of the lower jaw and the skull bones of LB1 and compared their characteristics with the corresponding characteristics of healthy, small-stature people living today, with pathologically altered skulls of people living today, and with finds of pre-human beings: One pathological reduction, based on Homo sapiens , is unlikely; rather, the LB1 skull has numerous independent features that place Homo floresiensis in close relationship to other representatives of the early hominini. 2011, the hypothesis of an insular dwarfism reaffirmed: The characteristics of the skull of LB1 were similar to most of those as Java man called Homo erectus -Fossilien, from whom he was descended probably; An analysis of the thickness of the roof of the skull of LB1 also gave no evidence of its affiliation with Homo sapiens .

Feet and hands

An analysis conducted by William L. Jungers found that Homo floresiensis had unusually large and flat feet compared to Homo sapiens : while the feet of today's people were approximately 55 percent of the length of their thighs, Homo floresiensis' feet were 70 percent in length the length of her thigh. Their gait must therefore also have differed from that of people living today; he probably couldn't run very fast because he had to lift his feet more than today's runners. Jungers also compared the foot bones with the foot bones of humans, pre-humans and monkeys living today, which are recorded in a large database: the greatest similarity is therefore with Homo habilis and Australopithecus afarensis .

The arms were also disproportionately long compared to Homo sapiens and in this respect they differ significantly from both microcephalic people and pygmies . The length ratio of humerus (243 millimeters) to thigh bones (280 millimeters) is 0.868 outside the range of variation of today's humans and all African great apes living today. It is 0.02 larger than the size ratio of Australopithecus afarensis and is about the average of the baboons ; all long bones of the arms and legs have - in proportion to their length - a larger diameter in the middle of the shaft than in Homo sapiens .

An analysis of the hand bones by an expert at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington in 2007 also showed that their interaction is neither similar to a healthy modern human nor a known pathological variant. The left wrist of Homo floresiensis can hardly be distinguished from that of a chimpanzee or an Australopithecus. In contrast, in 2008 a group of Australian scientists pointed out that the primitive wrist shape and other skeletal malformations match those of modern people who suffer from a congenital iodine deficiency syndrome of the myxedematous type ( cretinism ) due to malnutrition in their mother .

At the end of 2008, however, including new finds based on the fossils of six individuals (LB1, LB2, LB3, LB4, LB5, LB6), the upper extremities were certified as having “a unique mosaic ” of human-like and “primitive” features, “the never in healthy or pathologically altered modern people ”. Shortly afterwards, a comparable mosaic was also described for the feet on the basis of nine individuals (LB1, LB4, LB6, LB8, LB9, LB10, LB11, LB13, LB14). The analysis of another head leg and a hook leg in 2013 also confirmed this interpretation of the findings.

Habitat

Around 275,000 animal bones were discovered in the cave, 80 percent of which were assigned to rodents . In a study, around 10,000 bones of seven rodent species of different sizes from the family of long-tailed mice , whose habitat is known, were analyzed according to their frequency in different layers of the find. From these findings it was deduced that the cave - and consequently the habitat of Homo floresiensis - was located in predominantly open grassland 100,000 years ago. 62,000 years ago, however, a predominantly forested biotope developed around the cave . This led the author of the study to the conclusion that the lack of evidence for Homo floresiensis and various other animal species from around 60,000 years ago could possibly be a consequence of this climatic change, but that Homo floresiensis after the abandonment of the dwelling in the cave elsewhere on Flores - in what was then still mostly open grassland - could have continued to exist.

Dating

In the first description in 2004, the LB1 skull was assigned an age of around 18,000 years, the other finds of more than 38,000 years. AMS dating revealed a calibrated age of about 18,000 years each for two pieces of charcoal that were recovered from the base of the LB1 layer (laboratory codes ANUA-27116 and ANUA-27117). In 2005 the maximum age of the fossil finds of Homo floresiensis was put at 95,000 to 74,000 years, the minimum age at around 12,000 years. The youngest fossil to be found to be at least 12,000 years old is a child's spoke . All other finds lie under a thick layer of volcanic ash , which, with a radiometric age of 13,100 years, represents the latest possible time for the deposition of the hominine fossils. Possibly - so it was speculated - the extinction of Homo floresiensis could be linked to this massive volcanic eruption that took place on the island about 13,000 years ago and led to the deposition of the ash layer in the Liang Bua cave. No recent traces of the dwarf elephant Stegodon sondaari have been found either.

In addition, 32 stone tools were discovered in the find layer of LB1 , which, due to the undisturbed deposits, are very likely to be attributed to Homo floresiensis . The dating was supported by volcanic ashes that were deposited over the find layer and were initially dated between 17,000 and 11,000 years ago.

In addition to LB1, the lower jaw LB6 was also dated, its age is given as around 15,000 years. Furthermore, there is a stratigraphic age for front molar LB2 and LB3 forearm bones, were the old under a 38,000 years sinter layer and directly above a Stegodon - tooth, was determined for an age of 74,000 years. Further finds from even deeper layers then even gave a maximum age of 95,000 years.

A study in 2009 named the period of Homo floresiensis in the Liang Bua cave with 95,000 to 17,000 years ago and put the first evidence of Homo sapiens at the same site at 11,000 years.

However, research results from 2016 call into question the initial dating of the Homo floresiensis finds . According to this, the cave floor had changed due to erosion , so that charcoal remains, which were initially used for dating, are younger than the immediately neighboring finds of Homo floresiensis . With the help of argon-argon dating and thermoluminescence dating in particular , the remains of Homo floresiensis were dated between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago; Artifacts assigned to it are therefore between 190,000 and 50,000 years old. When Homo floresiensis became extinct was expressly named as an "open question" in the revision of the dating published in the journal Nature . According to a study published in 2018, the colonization of Flores by Homo sapiens may have already occurred 46,000 ( cal BP ) years ago.

controversy

Homo floresiensis in a pedigree model

The attempts to explain the unusual habitus of LB1 initially showed surprising parallels with the initial interpretation of the fossil Neandertal 1 in the 19th century; the first, eponymous find of a Neanderthal man was initially interpreted by some respected researchers as a pathologically altered, anatomically modern human being, for example as the skeleton of "a mounted Russian Cossack". In the case of Homo floresiensis , it was a “small but vocal group of scientists” who advocated the model of a multiregional origin of modern humans , which shortly after its first description rejected the classification as an independent species. Even the doyen of Indonesian paleoanthropology, Teuku Jacob , who died in 2007 , announced just four weeks after the first description and before his own detailed analysis of the finds that he doubted the classification as a new species. At the beginning of 2005 Jacob interpreted LB1 as pathologically altered Homo sapiens . Also in 2005, another group of researchers pointed out that brain size and proportions are within the range of variation for modern microcephalic people. This interpretation has been contradicted repeatedly, among others in the British Medical Journal , where a British research group described the shrinkage of the brain - also in comparison with similar changes in other families of primates - as in accordance with parallel changes in body mass; the alleged microcephaly was also published by Flores without prior inspection of the original finds.

In 2007, at the height of the dispute about the classification of the fossils, Zvi Laron , among others, also pointed to Laron's syndrome as a possible cause of the observed features, but this possible interpretation of the bone finds was also confirmed two years later - after extensive computer simulations - contradicted. Also the Down syndrome has been temporarily as the cause of the characteristics of Homo floresiensis considered.

Researchers around Teuku Jacob also denied that an independent species of the genus Homo could develop on the small island of Flores . In 2006, they argued that Flores was unable to sustainably provide sufficient food for an isolated hominini population. The sea ​​level was also lower during the ice ages ; As a result, Flores was only two kilometers from the next island, which in turn was not far from the mainland. The researchers therefore considered it unlikely that there was no contact between the islanders and the mainland for 800,000 years. An American team of researchers from the Field Museum for Natural History in Chicago also came to the conclusion in 2006 - based on the data from other researchers available at the time and primarily on the basis of the dimensions of the skull - that Homo floresiensis was most likely to be a microcephalic Stone Age man. In the same year, however, other researchers supported the thesis of an independent species after a comparison of LB1 with healthy and pathologically changed skulls of Homo sapiens as well as with Australopithecus and Paranthropus ; later the lead author of this study also pointed out that the entire remaining skeleton of LB1 did not look like the merely reduced skeleton of a sick modern human being.

The skull D2700 (replica) - a possible close relative of LB1's ancestors

In 2010 a review also came to the conclusion that “ Homo floresiensis is a long-surviving species of early Homo with the greatest morphological proximity to early African pre- erectus / ergaster hominins.” A second review, which looks at the texture of the bones below the head 2011 also came to the conclusion that " island dwarfing is the most plausible scenario" and that Homo floresiensis presumably descends from Homo erectus . Even the standard work Encyclopedia of Human Evolution published by Bernard Wood in 2011 does not doubt the status of Homo floresiensis as a separate species; The only reference is made to the fact that the Flores population is derived from Homo habilis rather than from Homo erectus in several publications .

In a further study, the distances between various anatomical features of the skull surface were measured and compared with one another on three-dimensional digital copies of fossil skulls of different species of the genus Homo , of LB1 as well as of modern humans who suffered from various diseases that are known to be the cause of short stature ; This study also showed that the LB1 skull shows greater similarities with the fossil group than with the modern, disease-related skulls. Most of all, LB1 resembles fossil D2700 from Georgia , a skull from the group of hominine fossils from Dmanissi , which are assigned to Homo erectus as a local variant .

The editor-in-chief of Nature , Henry Gee , who was responsible for the release of the first description , finally pointed out that LB1 was not an isolated find, but that the proponents of the hypothesis that the Flores finds were a pathological variant of Homo sapiens ignored this; rather, various other documents for the species have been found from much older layers. The period of time for the presence of the species on Flores therefore goes back to an era before the arrival of Homo sapiens . This alone calls into question any thought that “ Homo floresiensis could be a pathological offspring of anatomically modern humans”.

The re- dating of the finds published in Nature in 2016 was finally rated in Science as particularly convincing evidence of the independence of the species, since the colonization of Asia by Homo sapiens had only begun around 60,000 years ago . In the same year it was proven that individuals of a small species of the genus Homo were already native to Flores 700,000 years ago and the process of island dwelling must therefore have taken place very quickly; at the same time, these findings put an end to the scientific debate about the species status of Homo floresiensis .

Parallels to local myths

Sometimes a connection is made between Homo floresiensis and myths of indigenous peoples, which could point to the survival of this species into historical times. Locals told the Australian researcher Richard Roberts about so-called Ebu Gogo , who had met their ancestors: “The Ebu Gogo were tiny like small children, except for completely hairy faces and had long arms and a round drum belly. They kept mumbling in an incomprehensible language, but also babbled what we said to them. ”The last of these Ebu Gogo is said to have disappeared shortly before the island was colonized by the Dutch in the 19th century. Likewise, the orang pendek (Indonesian: little person ) is said to have lived on Sumatra until the 19th century .

See also

literature

First scientific description

Scientific reviews

Popular science descriptions

  • Mike Morwood , Penny van Oosterzee: The Discovery of the Hobbit: The Scientific Breakthrough that Changed the Face of Human History. Random House Australia, 2006, ISBN 978-1-74166-702-8 .
  • Dean Falk : The Fossil Chronicles: How Two Controversial Discoveries Changed Our View of Human Evolution. University of California Press, 2011 (Kindle Edition).
  • Kate Wong: The Dwarfs of Flores. In: Spectrum of Science. March 2005, pp. 30-39.
  • Lost World of the Little People. In: National Geographic. April 2005 (cover story).
  • Lydia Pyne: The Precious: Flo's Life as a Hobbit. Chapter 6 in: Dies .: Seven Skeletons. The Evolution of the World's Most Famous Human Fossils. Viking, New York 2016, pp. 186-211, ISBN 978-0-525-42985-2 .

Movie

  • Hobbit - The prehistoric man of Flores. (OT: . The Hobbit Enigma ) Documentary, Australia, 2008, 52 Min, written and directed. Annamaria Talas, Simon Nasht, Summary of arte , online video (English)

Web links

Commons : Homo floresiensis  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Homo floresiensis  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Peter Brown et al .: A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. In: Nature , Volume 431, 2004, pp. 1055-1061, doi: 10.1038 / nature02999
  2. ↑ a b c d e Mike J. Morwood et al .: Archeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia. In: Nature , Volume 431, 2004, pp. 1087-1091, doi: 10.1038 / nature02956
  3. ↑ a b Thomas Sutikna et al .: Revised stratigraphy and chronology for Homo floresiensis at Liang Bua in Indonesia. In: Nature. Volume 532, 2016, No. 7599, pp. 366-369, doi: 10.1038 / nature17179
  4. ↑ Did humans drive 'hobbit' species to extinction? On: nature.com from March 30, 2016
  5. ↑ a b c Yousuke Kaifu et al .: Craniofacial morphology of Homo floresiensis: Description, taxonomic affinities, and evolutionary implication. In: Journal of Human Evolution , Volume 61, No. 6, 2011, pp. 644-682, doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2011.08.008
  6. ↑ "Although some scientists believe that this tiny hominin was a modern human with a physical disorder, recent evidence suggests that Homo floresiensis was a distinct species." Quoted from: Alice Roberts: Evolution: The Human Story. Dorling Kindersley Ltd., London 2011, p. 142, ISBN 978-1-4053-6165-1
  7. ↑ Lydia Pyne: The Precious: Flo's Life as a Hobbit. Chapter 6 in: Dies .: Seven Skeletons. The Evolution of the World's Most Famous Human Fossils. Viking, New York 2016, p. 187, ISBN 978-0-525-42985-2
  8. ^ A b c Henry Gee : The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 2013, pp. 5-11, ISBN 978-0-226-28488-0 .
  9. ↑ Mike J. Morwood et al .: Fission-track ages of stone tools and fossils on the east Indonesian island of Flores. In: Nature . Volume 392, 1998, pp. 173–176, doi: 10.1038 / 32401
    Images of the stone tool finds from Mata Menge discovered in 1994 (from: Mike J. Morwood et al., 1998)
    Hobbit ancestors: A million years ago people lived on the Indonesian island of Flores. On: heise.de from March 20, 2010
  10. ^ G. Philip Rightmire: Part 6: Conclusion. The relationship between Homo erectus and younger Middle Pleistocene hominids. In: 100 years of Pithecanthropus. The homo erectus problem. In: Courier Research Institute Senckenberg. No. 171, Frankfurt a. M. 1994, pp. 319-326, ISSN 0341-4116.
  11. ↑ Chris Stringer : The dwarf man of Flores. In: Spectrum of Science. January 2005, pp. 14-15
  12. ↑ a b Hobbits in Indonesia. Researchers discover new types of people. On: spiegel.de of October 27, 2004
  13. ↑ Fossil 'hobbit' man discovered in Indonesia. On: Wissenschaft.de from October 28, 2004
  14. ^ Ann Gibbons: New Species of Small Human Found in Indonesia. In: Science. Volume 306, No. 5697, 2004, p. 789, doi: 10.1126 / science.306.5697.789
  15. ↑ a b Mark W. Moore et al .: Continuities in stone flaking technology at Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 57, No. 5, 2009, pp. 503-526, doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2008.10.006 , full text
  16. ↑ a b c d e Gary J. Sawyer, Viktor Deak: The long way to people. Life pictures from 7 million years of evolution. Spectrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg, 2008, pp. 131-136
  17. ↑ Hanneke JM Meijer, Rokus Awe Due: A new species of giant marabou stork (Aves: Ciconiiformes) from the Pleistocene of Liang Bua, Flores (Indonesia). In: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Volume 160, no., 2010, pp. 707-724, doi: 10.1111 / j.1096-3642.2010.00616.x
  18. ↑ Adam Brumm, Gitte M. Jensen, Gert D. van den Bergh, Michael J. Morwood, Iwan Kurniawan, Fachroel Aziz, Michael Storey: Hominins on Flores, Indonesia, by one million years ago. In: Nature. Volume 464, 2010, pp. 748-752, doi: 10.1038 / nature08844
  19. ↑ Gerrit D. van den Bergh et al .: Earliest hominin occupation of Sulawesi, Indonesia. In: Science. Volume 529, 2016, pp. 208-211, doi: 10.1038 / nature16448
    Ancient tools may shed light on the mysterious 'hobbit'. On: sciencemag.org from January 13, 2016
  20. ↑ a b Gerrit D. van den Bergh, Yousuke Kaifu, Iwan Kurniawan, Reiko T. Kono, Adam Brumm, Erick Setiyabudi, Fachroel Aziz and Michael J. Morwood: Homo floresiensis-like fossils from the early Middle Pleistocene of Flores. In: Nature. Volume 534, 2016, pp. 245–248, doi: 10.1038 / nature17999
  21. ↑ Why the new fossils shed light on evolution of Flores 'hobbits'. On: theguardian.com from June 8, 2016
  22. ↑ Adam Brumm, Gerrit D. van den Bergh, Michael Storey et al .: Age and context of the oldest known hominin fossils from Flores. In: Nature. Volume 534, 2016, pp. 249-253, doi: 10.1038 / nature17663
  23. ↑ Tiny jaw reveals dawn of the hobbit. On: sciencemag.org from June 8, 2016
  24. ↑ Hobbits with a long family tree. On: planeterde.de from June 10, 2016
    Little freak with a big story. On: zeit.de from June 8, 2016
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