Bones of "small-bodied humans" found in cave

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Bones of "small-bodied humans" found in cave

oceania » micronesia » palau

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Monday, March 24, 2008

A report published recently has claimed that "small-bodied humans" have been found in the "in limestone caves in the rock islands of Palau, Micronesia." The report, which was published in volume three, issue three of the 2008 edition of the open access journal, PLoS ONE. The report claims that these small people may "represent a congenitally abnormal individual drawn from a small-bodied island population of Homo Sapiens." The term for this condition is Insular Dwarfism.

The report said that "Based on the evidence from Palau, we [Lee R. Berger, Steven E. Churchill, Bonita De Klerk1 and Rhonda L. Quinn3] hypothesize that reduction in the size of the face and chin, large dental size and other features noted here may in some cases be correlates of extreme body size reduction in H. sapiens. These features when seen in Flores may be best explained as correlates of small body size in an island adaptation, regardless of taxonomic affinity. Under any circumstances the Palauan sample supports at least the possibility that the Flores hominins are simply an island adapted population of H. sapiens, perhaps with some individuals expressing congenital abnormalities."

The report also stated that although the dwarf humans appeared to have many features in commons with Homo sapiens, there seems to be many features that are not usually associated with Homo sapiens.

Source: Wikinews

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Bones of "small-bodied humans" found in cave

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