Today’s New Reason To Believe

Posted by Fazale ‘Fuz’ Rana, Ph.D.

New research raise questions about the identity of Homo floresiensis, or does it?

Anyone who has read or seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy knows that the noble creatures called hobbits played a pivotal role. Recently, a team of anatomists have suggested that real-life hobbits were not the hobbits of Tolkien fame, but cretins known as Homo floresiensis, nick-named hobbits because of their small stature.

In the fall of 2004, Australian and Indonesian paleoanthropologists stunned the archeological world when they published evidence for hobbit-sized hominids that co-existed for a time with modern humans. Fossils recovered on the Flores Island of Indonesia indicate that these hominids stood just over three feet tall with a chimpanzee-like brain size (380 cm3). Their cranial and facial features appear to bear resemblance to Homo erectus and their post-cranial skeleton seems to combine characteristics of theaustralopithecines (like “Lucy”) and H. erectus. The paleoanthropologists who recovered these remains classified them as a new species, Homo floresiensis.

The most remarkable specimen recovered was a nearly complete skeleton of a female that dates to about 18,000 years in age. Other fossil and archeological evidence indicates that H. floresiensisexisted on Flores Island from about 95,000 to 12,000 years ago, when they became extinct. It appears that H. floresiensis, co-existed with modern humans. Still, paleoanthropologists are not sure if the hominids had any contact with human beings.

Archeological evidence and animal remains indicate that H. floresiensis hunted and scavenged the dwarf elephants on the island, as well as rats, fish, snakes, frogs, birds, and tortoises.

The coexistence of H. floresiensis with modern humans and their remarkable behavior—given their small brains—has prompted a minority of paleoanthropologists to argue that these creatures are microcephalic human beings. This interpretation of H. floresiensis has been met by skepticism from many paleoanthropologists.

Recently a team of scientists proposed that the hobbits were modern humans suffering from congenital hypothyroidism. This condition severely limits growth and results in a small brain. Researchers reached this conclusion after analyzing a cast of the only skull of H. floresiensis that has been recovered to date. They point to an enlarged pituitary fossa at the base of the skull behind the nasal cavity. This feature is a diagnostic for endemic cretinism that results from hypothyroidism.

Other paleoanthropologists are unconvinced. They claim that the cast the researchers used in their analysis was a poor replica because the research team did not have access to the actual fossil. This is not uncommon in paleoanthropology. More often than not, researchers have to rely on replicas of the actual fossil specimen. If the replica is poorly made, analyses based on it will be flawed by definition. It appears as if this is the case for the replica that led the team of anatomists to conclude that the hobbits were cretins. The casts of the H. floresiensis skull that are part of the collections of Dean Falk and Ralph Holloway don’t show any evidence for an enlarged pituitary gland.

Peter Brown, who was among the paleoanthropologists who discovered H. floresiensis, also disagrees with the cretin interpretation. He maintains that the actual specimen has a poorly preserved pituitary fossa that doesn’t permit the measurements needed to support the notion that this hominid suffered from hypothyroidism. Brown is one of the few scientists who have seen and handled the actual H. floresiensis skull fossil.

At this juncture, it appears that the original interpretation of the Flores fossils stands. The hobbits aren’t cretins, but remarkable creatures that had close kinship to H. erectus. For a discussion of why it’s unlikely that H. floresiensis were microcephalic humans and of how these hominids fit into RTB’s human origins model, see the article I wrote for our free minimagazine Connections.

Posted by Fazale ‘Fuz’ Rana, Ph.D.

Does Palau Island Discovery Challenge the Status of Homo floresiensis?

My youngest daughter’s all-star cheer team was recently invited to perform during half-time at an LA Breakers game. The LA Breakers are a professional dwarf basketball team made up of male and female players from 4’ to 4’ 9” in height. After the game, my daughter got to meet the team members, several of whom are TV and movie stars. The list of celebrities included Martin Klebba who had a role in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Needless to say this experience created quite a stir in our house later that evening as my daughter recounted all that happened and showed us the freshly autographed team picture of the Breakers.

A recent discovery of the fossilized remains of little people on the island of Palau also has created quite a stir among paleoanthropologists. A team headed by a scientist from South Africa unearthed a large number of remains of modern human dwarfs in two caves on raised limestone islets off the coast of the southern part of Palau.

These modern human specimens date between 940 and 2,900 years old. Evidence for human occupation on the island extends back to 3,000 to 4,500 years ago. There were no fauna or flora associated with the human remains, nor have any artifacts been recovered. This evidence suggests that these caves served as a graveyard, of sorts. Unfortunately, none of the skeletal elements are articulated (connected). The burial site shows evidence that wave activity repositioned and redeposited the remains within the caves.

The paleoanthropologists noted that many of the humans buried in the cave were smaller than contemporary pigmies. Using pelvic girdles and femur heads, the paleoanthropologists estimated the body mass of the females in the caves to be about 75 kilograms and about 100 kilograms for males. The research team focused their attention on some of the smaller individuals in the fossil assemblage, most notably a cranium embedded in limestone. This specimen has yet to be extracted from the site, so their analysis of the cranium was conducted in situ.

Although the research team observed that the facial features were distinctly those of modern humans, they also identified other features found in primitive hominids. The brain size of this individual was estimated at about 1,000 cubic centimeters, the low end of the brain size range of modern humans.

The researchers proposed that these remains represent a group of modern humans who made their way to the island of Palau and underwent insular dwarfism, rendering them small in stature. This process involves a microevolutionary reduction in the size of animals when isolated for a significant period of time, often on an island. In the face of limited resources and no predatory threat creatures respond by undergoing a dramatic reduction in size.

These findings on Palau are reminiscent of another fossil find reported in 2004, the recovery of small-bodied hominids on the Indonesian island of Flores. The Flores finds were interpreted as a new species, termed Homo floresiensis. Since that discovery, controversy has surrounded this interpretation with some paleoanthropologists arguing that these are the remains of microcephalic modern humans. (For a discussion of how these hominids fit into RTB’s human origins model, see the article I wrote recently for our free minimagazine Connections.) The researchers who discovered the Palau dwarfs are now weighing in on this issue. They argue that perhaps the Flores island hominids were actually modern humans that also experienced insular dwarfism. They noted that the primitive features they detected in the Palau island people suggest that the primitive features of the Flores island specimens were a consequence of the changes that stemmed from insular dwarfism.

While it appears that the Palau people are modern humans who experienced insular dwarfism, the extension of this explanation to the Flores island hominids appears unwarranted upon closer inspection.

Posted by Fazale ‘Fuz’ Rana, Ph.D.

Lice DNA Supports Biblical Account of Humanity’s Creation

Every parent dreads receiving a note from their children’s school announcing an outbreak of lice. Messages of this sort set in motion a series of unpleasantries for the child, parent, and sometimes the rest of the family.

Some anthropologists, however, take a certain delight in lice infestations. These obligate surface parasites, and their genetic variability, offer insight into human origins and the migration of the first people around the world.

Most scientists who study lice are interested in these parasites for biomedical reasons. For example, some choose to focus on the natural history of these disease-causing organisms. Learning about the timing and location of lice origins, the historical pattern of their spread, and consequently, the contemporary distribution of their genetic variation helps biomedical researchers understand how infectious diseases harbored by insects spread. This information can potentially lead to more effective public health programs and, in some cases, treatments.

In the process of studying the origin and natural history of human parasites, like lice, molecular geneticists have stumbled upon an exciting new way to characterize humanity’s origin and movements around the world. Researchers believe that the timing and location of the origin, as well as the spread, of disease-causing and disease-harboring pests around the world mirrors the timing and location of the origin and spread of humanity. As such, the worldwide genetic variation of these infectious agents can be used in the same way that molecular anthropologists use human genetic variation to gain understanding of human prehistory.

A remarkable study on the global circulation of head lice illustrates how this creature can be used to track the spread of humanity around the world.*

There are three types of head lice (based on genetic fingerprints) distributed around the world: types A, B, and C. Type A is found throughout the world. Type B occurs in North and South America, and Europe. Type C is rare and geographically restricted to Ethiopia and Nepal.

Some investigations posit that Type A head lice established its association with modern humans in Africa shortly after the first people appeared. Type B originated in Europe after humanity spread into Asia and then Europe. Accordingly, Type B head lice appeared in the New World when Europeans colonized the Americas. If this model is correct, then Native Americans would have carried Type A head lice with them when they originally migrated into the Americas from Asia.

Researchers recognized a unique opportunity to test this model with the discovery of pre-Columbian mummies in Peru, dating to about 10,000 years in age, well before the Spanish and Portuguese arrived.

Anthropologists were able to recover the remains of ancient lice from the hair of the mummy. They then successfully extracted DNA from the lice specimens, then amplified and sequenced it. The lice possessed the Type A DNA fingerprint. This result means that the first immigrants into the Americas most likely carried the same genetic version of lice as the first humans in Africa. Type B lice must have been introduced by European settlers.

The natural history of lice matches the expected pattern of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis for human origins. Though often presented and discussed within the context of the evolutionary paradigm, this model has profound biblical implications. This hypothesis, which is substantiated by numerous studies, maintains that humanity originated recently (about 100,000 years ago) from East Africa (near the location theologians ascribed to the Garden of Eden) from a small population. Studies using mitochondrial and Y chromosomal DNA markers trace humanity’s origin back to a single man and woman. The genetic data also indicate that humanity’s migration around the world began at or near the Middle East.

If humanity’s genesis happened in the way described in Scripture, the genetic diversity patterns observed among international people groups would be very similar to those discovered by anthropologists. It looks as if Adam and Eve really existed, giving rise to all humanity.

For a detailed discussion of the myriad evidence in favor of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis and the use of parasites to characterize the origin of humanity see my book Who Was Adam?

*This study made science news headlines when first published. I discussed the scientific and biblical implications of this research on the February 11, 2008 edition of our new podcast, RTB’s Science News Flash. This podcast offers a unique Christian perspective on headline-grabbing discoveries. A free subscription is available through iTunes.