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Science 21 September 2007:
Vol. 317. no. 5845, pp. 1743 - 1745
DOI: 10.1126/science.1147143
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Reports

The Primitive Wrist of Homo floresiensis and Its Implications for Hominin Evolution

Matthew W. Tocheri,1* Caley M. Orr,2,3 Susan G. Larson,4 Thomas Sutikna,5 Jatmiko,5 E. Wahyu Saptomo,5 Rokus Awe Due,5 Tony Djubiantono,5 Michael J. Morwood,6 William L. Jungers4

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.

1 Human Origins Program, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA.
2 School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, AZ 85287, USA.
3 Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, AZ 85287, USA.
4 Department of Anatomical Sciences, School of Medicine, Stony Brook University, NY 11794, USA.
5 The National Research and Development Centre for Archaeology, Jakarta, Indonesia.
6 School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tocherim{at}si.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Upper-Limb Evolution and Development.
M. W. Marzke (2009)
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Are the small human-like fossils found on Flores human endemic cretins?.
P. J Obendorf, C. E Oxnard, and B. J Kefford (2008)
Proc R Soc B 275, 1287-1296
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The Homo floresiensis cranium (LB1): Size, scaling, and early Homo affinities.
A. D. Gordon, L. Nevell, and B. Wood (2008)
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A. Rauch, C. T. Thiel, D. Schindler, U. Wick, Y. J. Crow, A. B. Ekici, A. J. van Essen, T. O. Goecke, L. Al-Gazali, K. H. Chrzanowska, et al. (2008)
Science 319, 816-819
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