One more Homo species? Recent 3-D-comparative analysis confirms status of Homo floresiensis as a fos
One more Homo species? Recent 3-D-comparative analysis confirms status of Homo floresiensis as a fossil human species
11 hours ago
(Phys.org) —Ever since the discovery of the remains in 2003, scientists have been debating whether Homo floresiensis represents a distinct Homo species, possibly originating from a dwarfed island Homo erectus population, or a pathological modern human. The small size of its brain has been argued to result from a number of diseases, most importantly from the condition known as microcephaly.
Based on the analysis of 3-D landmark data from skull surfaces, scientists from Stony Brook University New York, the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen, and the University of Minnesota provide compelling support for the hypothesis that Homo floresiensis was a distinct Homo species.
The study, titled "Homo floresiensis contextualized: a geometric morphometric comparative analysis of fossil and pathological human samples," is published in the July 10 edition of PLOS ONE.
The ancestry of the Homo floresiensis remains is much disputed.
The critical questions are: Did it represent an extinct hominin species? Could it be a Homo erectus population, whose small stature was caused by island dwarfism?
More:
http://phys.org/news/2013-07-homo-species-d-comparative-analysis-status.html#jCp