floresiensis

=Homo floresiensis = = =

Origins of the skull

In 2003 a joint Indonesian-Australian team discovered a nearly __complete__ female skeleton of a tiny human that lived about 18,000 years ago on the island of Flores, Indonesia. They named this species Homo floreseinsis after the island it was found on and was nick named "hobbit" after characters in __The Lord__of the Rings due to their small skeletal structure. More bones and teeth have been found since; representing as many as http://www.google.com.au/imgres?

Features of the skull:

It was very human like and had teeth similar to ours. It had a strangely shaped brain; the brain was a third of the size of a normal human brain. The skull was a great deal smaller than that of a homosapian. The floresiensis does not have a chin, a receding forehead. They had quite large teeth considering they had such a small proportioned head, a medium sized brow ridge. Protruding jaws and signs of a receding chin.



What Homo floreseinsis looked like

From the skeletons that they have found, scientists believe that the Homo floresiensis stood on average 10 6 centimetres __high__ and weighed about 30 kg. They had tiny brains, large teeth for their size, shrugged-forward shoulders, no chins, receding foreheads and relatively large feet due to their short legs. They had a bipedal foot that included a big toe aligned with __the other__ toes.

In the __picture__, it is clear how short the homo floresiensis was. You can see that they had short legs and receding foreheads.

Behaviours

Although H. floresiensis had a small __body__ and brain, it is believed that they still made and used tools and hunted small animals such as the Stegodon (an extinct __type of__ elephant). The ‘hobbit’ had coped well with predators such as the giant Komodo dragon and they may have also used fire. The tools that were found with H. floresiensis are greatly similar to those found __before__ and after its existence. Although this Homo had the brain capacity to __build__ these tools no evidence has been found to say that they showed any symbolic behaviour similar to Homo Sapiens (e.g. personal ornaments or formal disposal of the dead).

Bibliography

Homo floresiensis - Australian Museum. (n.d.). //Australian Museum - nature, culture, discover - Australian Museum//. Retrieved April 25, 2012, from [] Homo floresiensis. (n.d.). //Human Evolution by The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins __Program__//. Retrieved April 25, 2012, from [] Homo floresiensis essay | Becoming Human. //Becoming Human//. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 May 2012. []