Homo floresiensis physiognomy
2007 September 15, Saturday, 18:31 — monado
TV Ontario is showing a special about Homo floresiensis. Her physiognomy is not that of a modern human. The professional reconstruction first restored missing chips of bone and teeth inserted into the root-grooves. The resulting skull is clearly not modern: it has prominent eyebrow ridges and lacks a chin. The most similar skulls and brain casts are those of Homo erectus. And since Flores has been an island for a million years, if Homo got there, they travelled over the sea, if only by rafts.
A demonstration project has shown that plain, keel-less rafts and paddles can get humans to islands such as Komodo.
2007 September 21, Friday, 08:13 at
I wish there were more specimens available to address these ongoing debates. The discovery of Homo floresiensis is one of the great stories in human evolution and we’ll know more once the original research team gets back to the caves in Flores and to the other islands. Hard to believe, but their work was halted by the Indonesian government at one point.
Of course, I have a vested interest in hoping this story has some validity to it, having written a fictional adventure novel called Flores Girl on the find. There is more on this ongoing controversy about Homo floresiensis at http://www.floresgirl.com
Erik John Bertel