Abstract
The discovery of Homo floresiensis , reported in 2004, has upended the definition of the genus Homo . This species exhibited a bizarre combination of Homo-like slender cranio-dental morphology and Australopithecus-like small brain and body size, and it had survived on an isolated island in Indonesia until recently (about 50,000 years ago). This stands in stark contrast to the known general trends of increasing body and brain size observed in continental Homo populations over the past 2 million years. Subsequent discoveries have further revealed that such “non-mainstream” evolution of Homo occurred in other locations along the continental margin ( Homo naledi from South Africa, first reported in 2015, and Homo luzonensis from the Philippines, reported in 2019). I will discuss my experience describing cranial and dental fossils from the original Homo floresiensis specimens found in Liang Bua Cave (~60,000 years ago), as well as older Homo floresiensis remains from the So’a Basin (~700,000 years ago), which hold the key to understanding its evolutionary origins.
