Shock and awe over mini-human find

SYDNEY – Australian scientists predicted a “palaeontological gold rush” yesterday after the discovery of a new species of tiny human in neighbouring Indonesia in a find that will re-draw the human family tree.

The discovery of fossils of the diminutive Homo floresiensis by a joint Australian and Indonesian team in the island of Flores was splashed across Australian newspapers yesterday. A report on the discovery of the small hominid, which stood just one metre tall and has been nicknamed “hobbit”, was published in yesterday’s edition of the British scientific journal Nature.The finding prompted scientists to ask what other remains could be found in Indonesia’s remoter islands.”If you told me an alien space craft had landed in a field in Flores I would have been less surprised,” said Peter Brown, associate professor in paleo-anthropology at the University of New England in New South Wales state, who was involved in the find.”This overturns everything I have thought.It begs the question — what else are we going to find? There should be a paleontological gold rush.”People of this body size were supposed to be extinct three million years ago.”The fossil remains of a female have been estimated at 18 000 years old, meaning they lived alongside early modern humans of our own species, Homo sapiens, which are estimated to have reached Australia and Indonesia’s outer islands at least 50 000 years ago.Researchers have suggested that the creatures, similar in body shape to modern humans but with a brain the size of a chimpanzee’s, might possibly have survived even into historical times.- Nampa-AFPA report on the discovery of the small hominid, which stood just one metre tall and has been nicknamed “hobbit”, was published in yesterday’s edition of the British scientific journal Nature.The finding prompted scientists to ask what other remains could be found in Indonesia’s remoter islands.”If you told me an alien space craft had landed in a field in Flores I would have been less surprised,” said Peter Brown, associate professor in paleo-anthropology at the University of New England in New South Wales state, who was involved in the find.”This overturns everything I have thought.It begs the question — what else are we going to find? There should be a paleontological gold rush.”People of this body size were supposed to be extinct three million years ago.”The fossil remains of a female have been estimated at 18 000 years old, meaning they lived alongside early modern humans of our own species, Homo sapiens, which are estimated to have reached Australia and Indonesia’s outer islands at least 50 000 years ago.Researchers have suggested that the creatures, similar in body shape to modern humans but with a brain the size of a chimpanzee’s, might possibly have survived even into historical times.- Nampa-AFP