The primitive wrist of Homo floresiensis and its implications for hominin evolution.
Whether the Late Pleistocene hominin fossils from Flores, Indonesia, represent a new species, Homo floresiensis, or pathological modern humans has been debated. Analysis of three wrist bones from the holotype specimen (LB1) shows that it retains wrist morphology that is primitive for the African ape-human clade. In contrast, Neandertals and modern humans share derived wrist morphology that forms during embryogenesis, which diminishes the probability that pathology could result in the normal primitive state. This evidence indicates that LB1 is not a modern human with an undiagnosed pathology or growth defect; rather, it represents a species descended from a hominin ancestor that branched off before the origin of the clade that includes modern humans, Neandertals, and their last common ancestor.
Tocheri
Matthew W
MW
Human Origins Program, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA. tocherim@si.edu
Orr
Caley M
CM
Larson
Susan G
SG
Sutikna
Thomas
T
Jatmiko
Saptomo
E Wahyu
EW
Due
Rokus Awe
RA
Djubiantono
Tony
T
Morwood
Michael J
MJ
Jungers
William L
WL
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002348:Carpal Bones / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D005580:Fossils; D015186:Hominidae / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000145:classification; D006801:Humans; D007214:Indonesia; D014953:Wrist / Q000033:anatomy & histology*