Scientists have forever been trying to figure out the pathways of early humans and the benefits of their adaptations. I came across a few articles that were about how there has been new research recently that shows the relationship between Homo floresiensis (the hobbit) and modern-day humans. A skeleton was discovered on an Indonesian island in 2003. The skeleton was described as "a bipedal primate under 4 feet tall, with a brain the size of a chimpanzee's, and a human face" by Columbia Daily Tribune. According to some hypotheses, the hobbit either represents a modern person with some form of ailment because of its characteristic human-like face and little brain or is representative of a human ancestor who had diminutive traits after living on the island, depending on which theory you believe.
Colleen B. Young, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Missouri, recently published a study that provides evidence for the latter hypothesis. Young used fox bones to establish the relationship between Homo floresiensis and contemporary humans, which is interesting because he noticed that foxes and hobbits were both omnivores. She observed that the island foxes spotted on the California Channel Islands were smaller than the gray foxes found on the US mainland.
Dwarfed island foxes have much lower intercepts but steeper slopes of all limb parts regressed on anticipated body mass than the mainland gray fox, according to the abstract of her research report. The island fox's limbs are much shorter than those of a non-dwarfed gray fox with identical body mass as a result of these allometric changes. The body size of the island foxes was 30% smaller than that of the gray foxes. Young hypothesizes that these modifications happened as a result of the foxes' need to survive in their new surroundings. Additionally, the island foxes differ from their relatives in that they have separate limbs, which supports the notion that the foxes' bodies are altered as a result of adjusting to the new environment.
Young related Homo floresiensis to the island foxes and gray foxes in this way. Since there weren't actually any islands back then, she believes that Homo erectus arrived on the island in some capacity and had to adjust to their new surroundings. Young discovered that "the Hobbits, except for their size, appeared like Homo erectus and were using the same stone tools Homo erectus employed about 800,000 years ago" in order to support this theory. In order to survive in the new environment, Homo erectus most likely developed into Homo floresiensis, which resulted in Homo floresiensis looking like Homo erectus but having a smaller body (such as a smaller brain and limbs).
An important contribution to anthropology, Young's work illuminates the evolutionary path of early humans. Modern humans are closely related to Homo erectus. Amazingly, Homo floresiensis, which was once believed to be a completely separate species, was just the product of adaptation and evolution in response to a new environment. Anthropologists are now a step closer to understanding how we came to be thanks to this discovery.
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