Convoluted human evolution: another 'hobbit' type found (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, April 11, 2019, 00:47 (2054 days ago) @ David Turell

In the Philippines:

https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/new-fossil-human-relative-found-in-the-philipp...

"A handful of teeth and limestone-encrusted hand, foot and leg bones dug out of a cave in the Philippines have been given their own branch on the human family tree.

"The new species – Homo luzonensis – is described this week in the journal Nature, and is believed to have lived more than 50,000 years ago on Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines.

"The discovery marks the second time that a species of early human has been found on islands in Southeast Asia that are separated from both the Asian and Australian continental shelves by deep-water straights.

"The diminutive Homo floresiensis, discovered in 2004 on the Indonesian island of Flores, was the first.

"H. luzonensis is also a mix of old and new, packaged in what was probably a small body.

***

"Together, the features set H. luzonensis apart from anatomically modern humans, as well as other early human lineages including Homo erectus, which made it all the way to Java, on the edge of the Asian continental shelf.

“'This is a very important discovery,” says palaeoanthropologist Darren Curnoe from the University of New South Wales, in Australia, who was not involved in the study.

***

"The ancient features of both H. floresiensis and H. luzonensis suggest that hominids may have dispersed out of Africa more than two million years ago.

"Once they reached the islands of south-east Asia, they could have evolved into separate species on different islands, much as occurred with tortoises and other animals on the Galapagos Islands.

“'You could have hominin species on all the different large islands in the Philippines,” says Piper. “It's absolutely incredible to think about."

"However, Curnoe is not sure the find constitutes a new species. At least, not yet.
“Whilst I'm convinced that the material they've found is very unusual, I'm not convinced at the moment that there's enough evidence to warrant a new species,” he says.

"The team is now working on dating some of the animal bones found in the same layer as the hominin remains, to get a better idea of when these archaic people lived. "

Comment: All i can say ism herec we go again.