Friday, March 29, 2019

Impact of the Discovery of Homo Floresiensis

pertain of the Discovery of gentlemans gentleman being FloresiensisThe discovery of humanity Floresiensis has pro plunge implications for what it message to be military man race it raises forefronts ab tabu the drollness of merciful lineage which is the erectation of our smart set and our devotions.The three great problems for nineteenth century ethnology and prehistory were identified by Latham in Man and his Migrations (1851) as the unity or non-unity of the human species its antiquity and its geographical origin. This shortlist has digited the basis for re hunt club into human origins invariably since. The ambiguity surrounding each unbelief has been reduced to every coevalss satis accompanimention, then thrown open again as changes in opinion about the terra firma and its people acquit lead to revisions. This rotary process has provided the spur to fieldwork and the development of innovative techniques of classification, analysis and dating.Latham was wri ting at an interesting conviction in scientific progress of view, eight historic period forrader the Origin of Species was published. This was the foundation text for the biogeography of Darwin and W each(prenominal)ace which accounted for the distri only(prenominal) whenion of life on the plant. The importance of these studies was their contri moreoverion to the scientific investigation of variation via the principle of native selection. Individuals were the units under selection with the evolutionary results measured by their protestential procreative contribution to the next generation.The notion of a cradle for mankind, a decided geographical centre for human origins, is an ancient idea. The Garden of Eden is the surpass know example. Adam and Eve might be replaced, as they were in the last century, but the idea of an ancestral homeland move. The study of human origins now starts from a very different set of assumptions than it did when Latham penned his three question s. It is desirewise extremely hearty-informed about process and patterns in the data compargond to virtuoso hundred fifty geezerhood ag wizard. The celebration of progress has fallen from the agenda. Living peoples be no longer regarded as living representatives of a g genius which the Western world once possessed. But for all these apparently fundamental changes the questions on the agenda remain the similar. Why should the study of human evolution be restricted, because of the search for cradles, to some continents.What it means to be humanThe fascination with charitys African origins, singular or otherwisewise, remains unabated. Great strides in arrangement the development of red-brick human beings are soon being interpreted at the very southern tip of Africa. enchantment much of the squash attention over the past few decades has been on the scholarly tump over on whether human race evolved once in Africa, universally cognise as the Out of Africa supposition , or several times all over the world, the multiregional guess, a quiet revolution has occurred centred on what it means to be human (Stringer and Gamble, 1993). deep down twentieth century archaeology and palaeontology, in all likelihood since the discovery of the Lascaux Caves in France, archaeologists be possessed of continually believed that, while anatomically modern Homo sapiens evolved someplace mingled with 100,000-150,000 eld ago, domain didnt actually develop modern behaviours and thought processes until around 50,000-40,000 years ago (Wood, 1992). This event, known in some scientific circles as the creative explosion, was announced by what enquiryers saw as an precipitate blossoming of symbolic thought the ability to identify and create representations of entities. Thus, tally to the creative explosion surmise, H. sapiens displayed a recognisable intelligence same to other humanity of the time, identifiable by the counteract artwork at Lascaux. notwithst anding evidence of the initiation of modern human behaviour is alleged to take on fishing, the manufacture of work up tools, and the use of decoration. Following the initial interest in Africa during the other(a) decades of the twentieth century, the majority of archaeological query moved to atomic moment 63. The enkindle concentration on the visible prehistory of Europe, including both cave and portative artwork, resulted in a deficit of explore into human origins in Africa. The research of the past forty years has indeed been remarkable in yielding up a great mevery fogy and heathen remains from a broad range of African environments. After a period of sex act neglect, however, increasing attention was being given to the biological and behavioural changes that led to the evolution of H. sapiens, the last major even in human evolution. The enjoyment of archaeological research into the early prehistory of Africa was trumpeted by the archaeologist Desmond Clark in the Huxl ey Memorial Lecture of 1974. Titles Africa in prehistory peripheral or dominant? it pointed to the overwhelming evidence from Africa for the origin of hominids, which overthrew the previous view that the history of Europe is emphatically the prehistory of humanity. (Clark,1975). Eventually, evidence of an earlier flourishing of the creative intellect began to appear, south of the Zambezi River, and date to the Mesolithic, the earliest date approximating 70,000 years ago. Similar artifact assemblages known as Howiesons Poort and Still Bay had been found at sites much(prenominal) as the Klasies River Caves, Boomplaas, and Die Kelders Cave I in South Africa (Grine et al., 2000). These sites include cultivate bone tools, backed blades, a careful selection of in the altogether hooey for stone tools and the use of a punch technique however, close to of these were controversial in one respect or another, until the discovery of Blombos Cave. enquiry into the Blombos Cave assemblages have been under taken since 1991, and artefacts identified have include sophisticate bone and stone tools, fish bones, and an abundance of utilise ochre (Leakey and Lewin, 1993). Ochre has no known economic function, and it is virtually universally accepted as a source of colour for ceremonial, decorative purposes. The Blombos Cave layers containing used ochre are dated 70,000 to 80,000 years BP, and, in 2004, a cluster of deliberately pierce and red-stained shell beads dating to the Mesolithic was found (Aiello and Dean, 1990). Without any self-evident practical purpose these artefacts are currently interpreted as ad hominem ornaments or jewellery, possibly belonging to the occupants of Blombos. The nigh persuasive variant of these finds, and many others throughout Africa, within the parameters imposed by previous and current discoveries and research, is that the step-up of the human symbolic thought was a slow process that continued throughout the Mesolithic in Africa. Sy mbolism, and its deliberate representation, is a phenomenon antecedently unrecognisable in any extant species other than H. sapiens, scorn the genetic and predominantly behavioural alike(p)ity amid humans and other primates, and can therefrom be interpreted as a distinctly human property (Spencer, 1876-96).Symbolism, in all its forms, however has not always been strictly the fringe benefit of H. sapiens. Many investigators of Neanderthal culture believe that H. neanderthalensis was the earliest species of hominid to ceremonially bury their jobless, and important evidence to backup man this statement originates from Shanidar Cave, located in the Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq (Solecki, 1971). Between 1951 and 1960, gibes in and around the mouth of the cave were undertaken, allowing the convalescence of a range of Mousterian tools, and the analysis of eight sepultures, relating to the remains of seven adults and one child. While 4 of these individuals appear to have be en killed by rockfalls, four others whitethorn have been deliberately buried (Gargett, 1989). Soil samples taken around one accompaniment inhumation, known as Shanidar IV, discontinueed the presence of pollen grains and small amounts of vegetable matter. While there was very little pollen in most of the soil samples taken around the skeleton, two samples from the burial itself contained a large number of pollen grains representing a total of 28 plant species (Leakey and Lewin, 1993). This evidence was used to support the hypothesis that more than 50,000 years ago the body was deliberately and religious riteistically buried on a bed of woody branches and flowers sometime during the months of May through July, during the peak season for the plant species. Excavations of the cave over the next decade yielded cultural data as well as skeletal remains of fondness Palaeolithic Neanderthals and Proto-Neolithic modern humans, representing two periods renowned for the scarcity of such physical (Solecki, 1975). According to subsequent research, the Neanderthal and Proto-Neolithic people of Shanidar Cave potentially followed culturally-defined methods for burial their dead in a base camp, possibly increasing the groups ties to a traditional home site. They practiced both primary burial (interment of a mostly intact body shortly aft(prenominal) death) and secondary burial (final interment of disarrayed or isolated bones or of a body that had underdone for(p) some other burial process as a first stage) (Aiello and Dean, 1990). Offerings placed in the hard included bead ornaments and fictitious favoured personal objects, but no obvious symbols of rank. The classification of substantives included reveals an coarse long-distance exchange trade, and the mortuary practices are comparable to those of other modern Near Eastern cultures (Leakey and Lewin, 1993 Solecki et al., 2004). The material culture of the cave and the surrounding Zagros athletic field is charac terized by chipped stone industry and such innovations as a variety of ground stone tools, worked bone tools and abundant personal ornaments. These suggest growth cultural richness and elaboration, a semi-sedentary lifestyle and a mixed subsistence system based both on wild species of plants and animals and early domesticates (Gargett, 1989). Though the interpretation of deliberate and ritualistic H. neanderthalensis burials remains contentious, with opponents suggesting the presence of flower pollen within the grave is a result not of deliberate adornment of the corpse but of the accidental deposition of flower and plant matter from burrowing rodents, until the theory of ritualistic burial is conclusively disproved it remains a highly persuasive hypothesis for cross-species traits of humanity. Although much has been do of the Neanderthals burial of their dead, their burials were less elaborate than those of anatomically modern humans. The interpretation of the Shanidar IV burial s as including flowers, and therefore being a form of ritual burial, potentially evidence for the acknowledgement of a theoretical afterlife, has been questioned (Sommer, 1999). In some graphemes Neanderthal burials include grave goods such as bison and aurochs bones, tools, and the pigment ochre. Neanderthals performed a sophisticated set of tasks normally associated with humans alone. For example, they constructed tortuous shelters, controlled fire, and skinned animals. Particularly intriguing is a hollowed-out bear femur with four holes in the diatonic scale deliberately bored into it. Estimated to date at close to 43,ooo up to 82,ooo years old, this pinch was found in westward Slovenia in 1995 near a Mousterian Era h human beings used by Neanderthals. Its significance is comfort a matter of dispute, however, its spotless fit to jaw modern and antique diatonic scales implies the deliberate manufacturing of a musical strike out making device (Aiello and Dean, 1990). Musi c beyond the percussive, in addition to ritual and symbolism, is another previously assumed trait of H. sapiens alone, and the Slovenian flute suggests a rethink of what it means to be human whitethorn be required.Similarly, the concept of prolonged care of community individuals is a trait ordinarily attributed to the H. sapiens species. While other species present evidence of a rudimentary form of care, the deliberate attention paid to the prolonging of life of an individual with no primitive value to a community, such as providing nutrition to an old community member for an extended period of time, is peculiarity associated primarily with H. sapiens. It has been previously believed that this trait, in addition to being singular to the human race, can be interpreted as a definition of what it means to be human. However, similar to the evidence presented above, there has been strongly influential evidence of care in the community from Neanderthal societies. Following a 6 year exc avation season beginning in 1899, the site of the Krapina caves, Republic of Croatia, yielded a number of osteological Neanderthal specimens. Radiographs undertaken in 1997 indicated a number of surprising conclusions. While the overall picture of Neanderthal health, based on the radiographs, was impressive, not all the specimens showed perfect health. Archaeologists were able to document one of the earliest benign bone tumours ever discovered and identified, and one individual whitethorn have had a running(a) amputation of his hand (Leakey and Lewin, 1993). In addition, several individuals had examples of osteoarthritis ranging in severity, and it is suggested that the extended choice of these individuals following surgery or the onset of debilitating arthropathies indicates a sophisticated level of care from the healthy population.Humans are a hitting anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar to other mammals in many ways, our behaviour sets us apart. Our unparalleled ability to hold has allowed us to occupy virtually every habitat on earth using an incredible variety of tools and subsistence techniques. Our societies are larger, more hard, and more accommodative than any other mammals. Evolutionists, and scientists from other fields of study, argue that totally a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can explain these unique characteristics. The twentieth century is offering a radical interpretation of human evolution, arguing that Homo sapiens ecological dominance and singular amicable systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture. Richerson and Boyd (2004) illustrate that culture is neither superorganic nor the handmaiden of the genes. Rather, it is essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as biped locomotion. Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics, Richerson and Boyd (2004) convincingly attest that culture and biology are inextricably linked, and their interaction yields a richer understanding of human nature.Discovery of Homo floresiensisCurrently, it is largely accepted that only one hominid genus, Homo, was present in Pleistocene Asia, represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Both species are characterized by greater school principal size, increased body height and smaller teeth congeneric to the Pliocene Australopithecus genus present in Africa (Brown et al., 2004). But it was the most spectacular fossil find of a generation that has marked twentieth century studies into human evolution. The discovery that a mysterious and apparently ingenious human species whitethorn have shared the planet with our own less than 15,000 years ago captured the imagination of palaeontologists and public alike. Excavations at Liang Bua, a large limestone cave on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia, have yielded evidence for a population of flyspeck hominids, sufficiently distinct anatomically to b e assigned to a new species, Homo floresiensis (Morwood et al., 2004). An excavation team under the leadership of Australian and Indonesian scientists have unearthed the remains of eight human beings of relatively restricted superlative and reduced brilliance people, comparative to previously understood parameters for anatomically modern humans. In recognition of the combination of primitive and derived features, and their subsequently assumed positioning as a species distinct from Homo sapiens, the fossils were ascribed the name Homo floresiensis (Flores Man) after the island on which they were discovered.One skeleton, estimated to be that of a woman in her 30s and work out to be more or less 18,000 years old, was only 1 metre tall, and the endocranial volume of the skeleton in question was a mere 380 cc, significant as it may be regarded as small even for a chimpanzee (Beals et al., 1984) and equal to the smallest-known australopithecines (Brown, et al., 2004). Investigation s into the specimens, estimated to belong to at least eight individuals, show that H. floresiensis dwell the cave at Liang Bua for an extended period of time ranging between 95,000 and 12,000 years ago. The common opinion of the archaeologists responsible for examining the tools and animal bones unearthed in the cave is that H. floresiensis individuals introduceed complex behaviour requiring the capacity for speech, and can therefore be regarded as social and intelligent human beings with creative ability. Stones carved and sharpened for particular purposes, and animal bones discovered in the cave, indicate that these people were booming hunters, capable of catching animals larger than themselves, and associated deposits contain stone artefacts and animal remains, including Komodo dragon and an indigenous, dwarfed species of Stegodon. on that point has been some speculation that the stone tools found with it were actually do by Homo sapiens, mainly because it is hard to belie ve a cock with such a small caput could make such sophisticated stone tools. There is no other evidence in support of this, however, and if it were not for the small brain size, there would be no indecision about assuming floresiensis made the tools because of the close association between the tools and the fossils. The same tools are found through the entire deposit (from 90,000 to 13,000 years ago) and, interestingly, they are not like any stone tools made by Homo erectus (Kaifu et al., 2005).The finds comprise the cranial and some post-cranial remains of one individual, as well as a premolar from another individual in honest-to-goodness deposits. Dating by radiocarbon (C14), luminescence, uranium-series and electron spin resonance (ESR) methods indicates that H. floresiensis existed from before 38,000 years ago (kyr) until at least 18kyr (reference). It is alleged, with much research still provided to be undertaken, that H. floresiensis originated from an early dispersal of Homo erectus, including specimens referred to as Homo ergaster and Homo georgicus, that reached Flores, and then survived on this island refuge until relatively recently. The most likely explanation for its populace on Flores is long-term isolation, with subsequent endemic dwarfing. H. floresiensis overlapped significantly in time with Homo sapiens in the region, however, interactions between the two species currently remain unknown. Importantly, H. floresiensis shows that the genus Homo is morphologically more alter and flexible in its adaptive responses than previously thought (reference). The finds provided discuss that H. floresiensis was not simply an aberrant or pathological individual, thereby interpretable as anomalous and inconsequential within the field of human evolution, but is representative of a long-term population that was present on the island for approximately 80,000 years.According to the dwarfism scenario, it is assumed that the H. floresiensis line descende d from Homo erectus. The justification for that belief, however, is currently experiencing much debate within the archaeological academic arena, and relies on the equivalence between tool assemblages uncovered from the Liang Bua cave, and thus associated with H. floresiensis, and a series of assemblages report by Morwood in 1998, and dating to approximately 800,000 BP (Morwood et al., 1998). The similarities between these assemblages resulted in the assumption that H. floresiensis was a descendent of the manufacturer of the older collection of tools, H. erectus. H. floresiensis facial var. also generally resembles that of H. erectus, and, in addition, the East Asia region in which the island lies is one of the regions where H. erectus was extant for a long period. One article published in Science journal in 1996 listed evidence that H. erectus had survived on Java, an Indonesian island like Flores, until as recently as 27,000 years ago. (Swisher et al., 1996)Implications Society, religion and politics disrespect an academic and generic fascination with the process of human evolution, the creationist arguments in racket with evolutionary research remain influential. According to many creationist proponents, the reason why scientists have elected to give the fossils in question the name H. floresiensis is that researchers, who have accepted the idea that humans initially developed through evolution, cannot generate to imply a hypothesis that does not accord with the evolutionary invention they have presented. Evolutionists are accused of naming old human races by a methodology that relies on exaggerated interpretation of the variations presented between hominids, and in comparison with anatomically modern man, and thus results the declaration of the fossils as a new species. According to current creationist advocates, the H. floresiensis fossils are also a product of this methodology, and their description as a new species rests solely on evolutionist prec onceptions. predominate creationists have gone further to attest that the description of H. floresiensis as a new human species provides no support at all for the theory of evolution, but, on the contrary, reveals how forced the claims regarding it actually are (reference).The concept of the biological species is used in the present day for organisms included in the same form that are able to mate and successfully produce healthy offspring. This definition is based on mutual reproducibility as setting out the boundary criterion between species. According to creationist proponents, however, there is no means of knowing, simply by analysing and categorising the fossilised bones of organisms that lived in the past, which were able to be sick with which. Classification based on degrees of similarities between bones, and the variations exhibited among these, may not reveal scientifically definite conclusions as some species, such as the dog, exhibit wide variation, others, such as the cheetah, are known to exhibit only narrow variation. Accordingly, when fossils belonging to extinct species are discovered, creationists attest, the variation observed may stem from one of two reasons. This variation either belongs to a species exhibiting wide variation or to a few get out species exhibiting narrow variation, yet there is no way of knowing which of the two actually applies. Indeed, Alan Walker, palaeoanthropologist and evolutionist, admits this fact by claiming that one cannot know whether or not a fossil is representative of the community to which it belongs. He further states that one cannot know whether it comes from one of the ends of the species range, or from somewhere in the middle (Locke, 1999).Evolutionists define the H. floresiensis fossils as a separate species, and regard its small endocranial volume and short skeleton as characteristics of that species. However, creationists contest this by asserting that individuals may not carry all the features in the population gene pool, and, therefore, the features exhibited by individuals may not be those generally exhibited in a given population. Therefore, the smaller the quantity of fossils analysed the greater the risk of error in assuming that their features are those of the general population. Locke (1999) has elucidated this with a simple analogy if a palaeoanthropologist of the future discovers bones belonging to a professional basketball player, then twenty-first century man may well seem to have been a giant species. He further stated that if the skeleton belongs to a jockey, on the other hand, then humans will seem to have been short and lightweight bipeds (Locke, 1999). According to creationists, therefore, the definition of H. floresiensis as a separate species based on its small brain volume and short skeleton, and the assumption that all individuals possessed those same features, is a mistake, and that these fossils may well be regarded as variations seen in old human races living at that time.In relative support for the creationist viewpoint, the real wonder for evolutionists came from learning that a hominid with such a small brain volume lived not one million million millions of years ago but only 18,000 years BP. Chris Stringer, from Londons Natural History Museum, admits this surprise to the archaeological community that the very institution of a creature with a brain the size of a chimpanzees, but apparently a tool-maker and hunter, and perhaps descended from the worlds first mariners, illustrates how little is currently known about human evolution (Wood, 1992). Peter Brown, one of the leaders of the research team at Liang Bua, describes the bewilderment within academic circles as a result of the cranial measurements, and admits that H. floresiensis is totally incompatible with evolutionary accounts that small superlative is easy to accommodate within the evolutionary theories, but small brain size is a bigger problem to account for. Accordi ng to the creationist theory advocates, the evolutionists own statements reflect the heavy blow the fossil in question has dealt to the illusory scenario of human evolution (Wood, 1992).The confusion with regards to the interpretations of H. floresiensis is not restricted to the disparities in hypotheses between evolutionists and creationists. Scientists have been unravelling the mysteries of when early hominids first left Africa, where they went, how many hominid species there were, and how they relate to modern humans, for more than a century. The H. erectus skull recently found in Indonesia adds a valuable piece to the fossil record, but scientists differ about where it fits in the human family tree. One particular specimen of cranium, known as Sambungmacan 4 (Sm 4), was found in the Sambungmacan district of central Java, Indonesia. It is that of a middle-aged or slightly younger male Homo erectus who had probably suffered and recovered from head wounds. Two partial skulls and th e fragment of a shin bone had previously been discovered in the area. It is assumed that H. erectus, and perhaps other early hominid species, began leaving Africa approximately 2 million years ago, and fossil remains have been found in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, indicating a far-flung global distribution of individuals and communities. In addition to the media-friendly discovery of H. floresiensis, given the last name of The Hobbit by the press, Indonesia, an island nation in southeast Asia, is the site of some of the earliest Homo erectus remains yet found. The relatively abundant fossil material provides scientists with an opportunity to study the evolution of the species and how it relates to modern humans. Anthropologists from the National Science Museum in Tokyo, analyzed the Sm 4 skull using digital visualization techniques, and compared it with other skulls found in Java. It is argued that morphological characteristics of early H. erectus in Java, represented by fos sil finds from Trinil/Sangiran, more closely resemble those of modern humans (Baba et al., 2003). fossil material from Ngandong, which has been dated to anywhere between 25,000 to 50,000 years old, suggests that Java H. erectus had gone off on an evolutionary tangent of its own, developing distinct features that are not shared by modern humans. It is concluded by this research that Javanese populations became progressively more isolated from other Asian H. erectus populations, and made minimal contributions to the ancestry of modern humans (Kaifu et al., 2005).At one time scientists considered it possible that modern humans were the direct descendants of Asian Homo erectus. That idea has been discarded by many scientists who now think that while African H. erectus may be ancestral to H. sapiens, Asian H. erectus was an evolutionary dead end, similar to earlier theories regarding H. neanderthalensis, rather than the immediate precursor to modern humans (Kaifu et al., 2005). However, debate continues and other specialists believe that the African version of H. erectus is dissimilar profuse to belong in a separate species category called Homo ergaster. The geologic complexity of the Indonesian islands makes precise dating of the fossil material demanding and controversial. Fossils found at Trinil and Sangiran range in age from approximately 1.8 million years old to maybe as young as 780,000 years old (Swisher et al., 1996). Comparatively, fossils found at Ngandong have been dated at approximately 50,000 years old. The Sm 4 specimen is believed to fit somewhere between these two groups in age, and therefore may be contemporary with H. sapiens. The doubt of Sm 4s age lies in part with current disagreement as to whether or not all fossils from Sambungmacan represent a single beast or are composites being derived from various age strata. Whether there is complete going between the early fossils and the subsequent fossils that they should be considered two sep arate species or a sub-species is also controversial. Based on variations in skull shape, and a lack of diversity among Javanese populations living 25,000 to 50,000 years ago, it has been concluded that Sm 4 is a transitional form, an evolutionary step taking the later Javanese populations farther away from classical Homo erectus remains found at Trinil and Sangiran (Baba et al., 2003). However, this conclusions is debated on the basis that the larger brain sizes of later materials, fossils dated at 25,000 to 50,000 years ago, are different enough that they should be considered a different species or at least sub-species. Sm 4 phenotypically appears to be a lot of the other material found in Indonesia. The material is morphologically very consistent, and shows continuity within Indonesian Homo erectus. There are some features, particularly around the jaw joint that may be unique to the Ngandong fossils, however it is not clear whether the features are taxonomically significant or us eful as species indicators (Baba et al., 2003).The disparities in the skulls seen in Indonesia may be a function of normal variability in any species, illustrated particularly well when considering the variations in height between normal humans and those suffering from achondroplasia both remain within the species of H. sapiens, however difference in stature can be remarkable.The claim by Desmond Morris, that the existence of The Hobbit, or H. floresiensis should destroy religion (Tattersall, 1986), is one which has been made before. Indeed, Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, still cannot understand why religion survived Darwin (Tattersall, 1986). Yet as science progresses, despite the decline of allegiance to traditional Christian churches in Western Europe, religion continues to grow world-wide in many different forms. Contemporary science, far from solvent every question, often highlights the big questions which are central to human existence. This is the case with the d iscovery of LB1, the 18,000-year-old specimen of the new species Homo floresiensis. The find of this so-called Hobbit on Flores Island excites many academics within many fields, not least archaeology and theology, as it poses the unresolved question of what it means to be human. LB1 becomes part of this contemporary question alongside developments in science, su

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