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Rekan2 sekalian,
Saya ingin ikut berkomentar tentang manusia
"hobbit".
Saya tidak tahu dengan jelas tentang manusia
"hobbit" Homo florensis dan keterlibatan peneliti
Indonesia dalam penelitian manusia tersebut, dan apa, bagaimana serta dimana
letak Homo florensis dalam taksonomi hominid.
Namun
yang perlu saya info-kan adalah, sebenarnya saya dalam rangka kerjasama penelitian antara ITB dengan Universitas
Utrecht, Belanda pada tahun 1980-1981 bersama dengan Dr. Tony Djubiantono
(beliau berasal dari Geologi,sekarang ASDEP Arkeologi DEPBUDPAR - kalau dulu,
merupakan jabatan Kepala Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional) sebagai anggota
tim penelitian dibawah Almarhum Prof. Sartono, bekerjasama dengan Prof. Paul
Sondaar (sekarang juga sudah almarhum) dari Universitas Utrecht, melakukan
penelitian Geologi dan Paleontologi di Dataran Plato Soa, Kab. Bajawa, Flores,
telah menemukan banyak fosil pygmy Stegodon dan beberapa alat batu/artefak dalam
lapisan berumur Plestosen Awal - Tengah, tetapi tidak menemukan fosil
manusianya.
Kemudian, Dr. Fachroel Aziz dari P3G dan Tim dari
Australia (Prof. Bellwood), sejak tahun 2000 hingga sekarang juga (masih)
melakukan penelitian Geologi, Paleontologi dan Arkeologi di Dataran Plato Soa,
Kabupaten Bajawa, Flores yang telah menemukan banyak fosil vertebrata dan alat
batu/artefak di daerah tersebut, namun belum juga menemukan fosil manusianya.
Dr. Fachroel Aziz sendiri juga menjalin kerjasama dengan Prof. Mike Morwood,
bahkan, kalau tidak salah beliau2 juga pernah membentuk tim penelitian bersama
di daerah Dataran Plato Soa, sebelum dengan Prof. Bellwood.
Akan halnya manusia "hobbit" Homo
florensis, mestinya bukan masuk kelompok Homo
erectus yang telah punah pada sekitar 50k-an tahun yang lalu
(tyl), namun mungkin merupakan bagian dari Homo
(sapiens) wadjakensis yang mungkin juga sebagai hasil evolusi dan
mengalami isolasi dari Homo erectus yang menjadi
kerdil (pygmy) seperti yang dikatakan oleh Pak Awang. Setidaknya, bukti2 adanya
Homo erectus di Flores telah ada, dengan ditemukannya
alat batu/artefak dalam lapisan berumur Plestosen Awal - Tengah di Dataran Soa,
Kab. Bajawa, Flores, meski belum ditemukan fosilnya.
Di Australia Barat, telah ditemukan fosil manusia,
semula di dating berumur sekitar 50k-an tyl, namun data terbaru
mengatakan bahwa lapisan pengandung fosil tersebut berumur sekitar 100k tyl, dan
manusia purba tersebut diyakini berasal dari Homo
erectus dari Jawa yang bermigrasi ke Australia, setidaknya hal
tersebut merupakan keyakinan Almarhum Prof. Sartono. Nah, kalau ini
"benar" maka kita bisa GR bahwa bangsa Indonesia (baca Homo erectus)
pernah menduduki Australia, jauh sebelum para tahanan Inggris yang
dibuang ke Australia yang sekarang ini justru berkuasa di
sana..................
Penelitian manusia "hobbit" yang "keturunannya"
masih ada sekarang ini, sebenarnya bukan bidang paleontologi manusia, namun
merupakan bidang Paleoantropologi, yang pada dasarnya memang berkaitan erat
dengan Paleontologi Manusia.
Wassalam, Selamat Puasa Ramadhan,
Yahdi Zaim
Departemen Teknik Geologi
FIKM-ITB
Telp+Fax.: 022.250.21.97
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 11:42
AM
Subject: RE: [iagi-net-l] Manusia Hobbit
Homo floresiensis
Mungkin ilmuwan Indonesia pikir "hobbits" itu hanya
ada di dalam film Lord of The Rings (=dongeng) aja Ki....makanya better to not
involved kali yah?
(Koq nggak kedengaran ada ilmuwan
Indonesia yang ikut di tim ini ya...?)
Menarik, disini disebutkan bahwa salah satu survival
strategy untuk mengatasi kondisi yang minim resources adalah dengan
‘mengecilkan diri’.
Oki
- - - - - - - - -
Found - the newest members of the human
family
By Deborah Smith
October 29, 2004
A previously unknown species of miniature human
barely a metre tall, who hunted pygmy elephants and giant rats, lived on
Australia's doorstep until at least 13,000 years ago.
Australian and Indonesian scientists have unearthed
a near-complete skeleton of a female member of the species, nicknamed
Hobbit, in a cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores,
600 kilometres east of Bali.
The archaic humans co-existed for tens of thousands
of years with our own species and might have died out only 500 years ago.
Archaeologist and team member Mike Morwood, from the
University of New England, said they were about the size of a
modern three-year-old.
"They weighed around 25 kilograms and had a brain
smaller than most chimpanzees," Professor Morwood said. "Even so, they used
fire and made sophisticated stone tools. Despite tiny brains, these little
humans almost certainly had language."
The discovery of the species, published today in the
journal Nature, is being hailed as one of the most important in a century in
the study of human origins. Until now, it had been thought our only recent
cousins were the Neanderthals in Europe, who died out about
30,000 years ago.
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"The find is startling," said another team
member, Dr Robert Foley, of the University of Cambridge. "It
is breathtaking to think that such a different species of hominin existed so
recently."
Named Homo floresiensis, it is the smallest species
of human ever found. It is the first that overlapped recently with our
species to have been discovered since Neanderthal remains were found in the
1800s.
The island the small humans lived on,
Flores, was a "lost world" inhabited by creatures as strange
as they were - giant rats and giant lizards, komodo dragons, and primitive
dwarf elephants that were extinct elsewhere.
Bones including the skull, jaw, pelvis and leg of a
30-year-old woman were uncovered last year in Liang Bua cave on
Flores and dated to about 18,000 years old.
More recently, the team has uncovered her arm bones
as well remains from six other little people, who lived in the cave from
about 95,000 years ago to 13,000 years ago. The existence of the species
will prompt a "major rethink" of how humans evolved, according to another on
the team, Peter Brown, of the University of New England.
"The most remarkable thing is that someone with that
sort of small brain size was behaving in many ways like a modern human in
terms of hunting and the stone tools they used," he said.
Professor Morwood said the little people were
thought to have evolved from larger archaic humans, Homo erectus, who
managed to sail across to Flores from Java about 800,000 years
ago.
They evolved into dwarfs, like the elephants on the
island, because small creatures had a better chance of survival on a remote
island where there was little food and no major predators.
Homo erectus spread from Africa to
Asia more than a million years ago, but were eventually replaced by our
species, Homo sapiens, who left Africa about 120,000 years ago, according to
the leading theory of human movement.
The little Homo floresiensis species survived on
Flores long after Homo sapiens had moved into the region and
begun to colonise Australia and New Guinea 50,000 years ago.
Bert Roberts, of the University of
Wollongong, whose team carried out the dating, said there were a lot of
detailed folk tales on Flores about little people.
"These stories suggest there may be more than a
grain of truth to the idea that they were still living on
Flores up until the Dutch arrived in the 1500s," Professor
Roberts said. "The stories suggest they lived in caves. The villagers would
leave gourds with food out for them to eat, but legend has it these were the
guests from hell. They'd eat everything, including the gourds."
It is 110 years since the last human species was
discovered in South-East Asia - the 700,000-year-old Homo
erectus Java man specimen.
![An artist's impression of Homo floresiensis. Artwork: Peter Schouten Lost world ... the cave where the new species was found and, below, how its tiny skull measures up to a modern human's. Photos: Mike Morwood and Peter Brown]()
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