Book Review: A New Human

A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the "Hobbits" of Flores, Indonesia

Mike Morwood and Penny van Oosterzee (2007: Smithsonian, 272pp.)

The Indonesian island of Flores was just another spot in a vast archipelago – until it became the locus of a scientific earthquake.  Lead discoverer Mike Morwood here tells the story of Homo floresiensis from his point of view. The Ling Bua cave and the diminutive LB1, a woman who apparently died only 18,000 years ago [a date since moved back to at least 60,000], is a fascinating tale of intuition, research, scientific and academic rivalry, and grinding hard work. In 2003, the team is elated to find the lower jaw of a “child” – and dumbfounded when they see worn adult teeth.

The archaeology and paleontology involved is described thoroughly and understandably.  Morwood explains why this area was interesting, geographically and geologically, as a place to look for the first Asians to island-hop to Australia.  He also takes us through the customs and cultures of this vast archipelago, from a ritual contest using bullwhips to minibuses that vie to be the loudest means of transportation on Earth. 

Morwoord’s team's claim of a new human species, one that looks like none other and challenges not just our history but what it means to be human, sets off an international carnival.  LB1’s brain size was mid-range for a chimpanzee. It wasn’t possible for primates with 380 cc of grey matter [one later paper says 417] to build fires, make stone tools, and undertake cooperative hunting of large animals – except they did. An apparent example of “island dwarfing,” which once gave the world pony-sized elephants, apparently reshaped a species more closely related to its African ancestor than to the only known early hominid of Indonesia, Homo erectus.     

One of the interesting post-discovery episodes here is the path to publication. It can take months to run the peer-review gauntlet and well over a year to publish in a journal like Nature. But as whispers curl around the edges of their closely-held story, threatening to ignite it and let someone else name the species first, Morwood and the editors at Nature do things on an unprecedented schedule, ramming the paper through peer review in three weeks and publishing it in October 2004, seven months from the time Morwood first approached them.  (Morwood’s team considers the species name hobbitus, chortling about academic conferences discussing hobbits, but is eventually dissuaded.)

LB1 (there were bits of 12-13 individuals found, but LB1 had the only cranium, and there was only one other lower jaw) lived a hard life, but nothing could have prepared her for this.  Unconvinced scientists describe her as a Homo sapiens with microcephaly or one of three other suggested maladies.  As nationalist and academic feelings clash, bones are taken without authorization for dating; an Indonesian institute lets underskilled preparers take latex molds, damaging the priceless bones; Morwood’s US-British-Australian-Indonesian team is accused of “neocolonial” fossil-hunting; and Moorwood hears intriguing tales of the Ebu Gogo, the little people who supposedly inhabit Flores to this day. 

By the end of the book, the reader will, along with Morwood, experience relief when the species is established and the intellectual arguments won, even though the bones remain contested and locked away.  Morwood died of cancer in 2013, having seen his species widely accepted after much controversy.  The search for more “hobbits” goes on.

(There is also an updated edition of this book, which came out in 2009.)

Musings: At a cryptozoology conference, biologist/TV host Pat Spain told us Morwood had evidence the species survived into the 1920s. Morwood’s papers are still locked up in Indonesia, science held hostage to disputes about ownership and jurisdiction.  This is a well-told tale of an epic discovery, and readers will learn about much more than just a skeleton.

Other sources:

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/flores/sutikna-liang-bua-stratigraphy-dating-2016.html

https://phys.org/news/2017-04-indonesian-hobbits-revealed.html

https://phys.org/news/2013-07-homo-species-d-comparative-analysis-status.html