New tiny human bones were discovered in Palau

Thousands of human bones of many individuals have been discovered in the Pacific island nation of Palau. Some bones are quite ancient and show that people in this area have a particularly small body.

These bones have a lifespan of 900 to 2,900 years of age and are related to Homo sapiens, according to the publication of this discovery. However, older bone fragments are very small and have early human characteristics. Lee Berger, a paleontologist at the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa, said: 'They are not typical, they are very small.'

Berger went on vacation in 2006 and while sailing around rocky islands 600 kilometers east of the Philippines, he discovered bones in two caves. The cave was full of bones that had been hit by waves and lay piled like wood. Other bones are buried deep in the sand layer and many other bones include the skull bone, located in the cave walls. Berger returned in the same year as his colleagues to excavate some of the ruins under the sponsorship of the National Geographic Community.

Decode the bones

Two bones were discovered in Palau caves. Newer bone fragments are found near the entrance of 1 in 2 caves and are of normal size. The older bones deep in the cave are more strange and much smaller.

The smaller, older bones belong to people who are between 94 and 120cm tall and weigh about 32 to 41 kg. They are of the same size as the group of people called hobbits (similar to the fiction in the novel of JRR Tolkien, only half as tall as people), discovered during excavation on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003.

Scientists classify hobbit as a distinct human type, Homo floresiensis. According to Berger, the size of the brain of Palau residents in the early period was about double that of the hobbit's brain. Some other features, including facial and hip shapes, suggest Palau human bones should be classified into Homo sapiens.

If the analysis of Palau bone remnants is correct, this finding may add to the debate over whether the Hobbit breed in Flores is a unique, unique human breed. In addition to the small size, Palau bones show that some people do not have deep jaws and jaws, large teeth, small eye sockets.

At first, some of these characteristics were considered important in identifying hobbits as a unique ancient species. But Palau bone remnants suggest that these traits may only be the result of dwarfism on the island, a process that restricts the growth scientists think is affected by the environment on small islands.

Palau lacks native mammals and large reptiles that Palau people can use as food. Archaeological documents indicate that fishing has not yet appeared on the island until 1,700 years ago, the time when larger pieces of bone appeared in the cave.

The limited diet of early Palau people, combined with tropical climate, lack of predators, small early populations, and gene isolation, may have made ' strange characteristics and Very small body size '.

The new human skull was discovered in Palau (middle) when compared to the modern female skull pattern (left) and the skull pattern of Homo floresiensis.(Photo: Stephen Alvarez)

Discuss

William Jungers, a paleontologist at Stony Brook University, New York, and a former National Geographic sponsor, still defended his argument that hobbit is a unique human breed.

He emphasized that small bones, large teeth, lack of chin and other typical features for early Palau people as well as hobbits can be found in small groups of people in the world. But according to Jungers, 'small people on the earth do not have the same symmetry and different morphological characteristics like hobbits.'

Jungers points out that hobbits differ from modern humans in the jaw structure, known as horizontal ridges, found in human ancestors like the Southern ape and some Homo erectus fossils.

Chris Stringer, the principal researcher on the program of human origin at the London Museum of Natural History, mentioned other characteristic features in the hobbit's teeth, legs and wrist bones. Based on these evidence, he said: 'I still believe that what discovered in Flores is different and primitive.'

Berger said that they have not yet analyzed wrist, shoulder, and wrist bones in Palau models so it is not possible to comment on the results comparing them to the bones of hobbit.

Unlike Palau bones, hobbit fossils include a skull with a special baby brain compartment. Its size is much smaller than that of small stature living in Pacific islands and African forests. It is also smaller than the skull of the early island of Palau.

Some scientists argue that the unusually small size of the hobbit brain does not make them a unique species, but that it is Homo sapiens with microcephaly, a genetic disease that causes small brains and defects. another disability.

A group of Australian researchers have reported that abnormal hands and feet of Homo floresiensis may be affected by the disease. They argue that anomalies are sometimes noted in the descendants of a normal woman, with small children suffering goitre.

Berger said the team's findings may support the arguments about the disease. But they still have not found an individual who has these diseases and therefore cannot compare.

Debate is still going on

Dean Falk, paleontologist at Florida State University, Tallahassee, has just received funding from National Geographic to compare Flores's skull to those suffering from head dystrophy and modern people without the disease. She and her colleagues at the Mallinckrodt X-ray Institute concluded in a previous year publication that hobbit does not suffer from microcephaly.

Falk said the conclusion closed the controversy over the disease. Palau ruins, according to her, are just small bones of small stature people.'Small size does not mean comparable to Homo floresiensis.'

Steven Churchill, Duke paleontologist and co-author of the new work, said that discovering Palau expanded the understanding of modern variants in Southeast Asia, providing more information to Learn about hobbit fossils. He added that some scientists continue to believe that 'something is wrong with Flores.'

One of the scientists was Robert Martin, who was in charge of anthropological anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. He said everyone knows small-scale resident groups that exist in Southeast Asia.

A pygmy dwarf community now lives near the area where the hobbit was discovered in Flores in a village in Rampapasa, so the discovery of Homo sapiens in Palau, according to him, is "not surprising".

From Martin's point of view, the problem surrounding the hobbit classification is a separate species because it is based primarily on the brain size of 'a small-sized individual in Flores . The stature is really a a completely different story. '

According to Berger, the new discovery means 'not looking far away from the most unique features of faces and teeth in Flores.'

If such features are found in the early Palau inhabitants that appear popular on the island, scientists who want to name a new species in the human genealogy must show 'a much more reasonable case based on on more fossil evidence before convincing the whole world. '