![]() In addition to tools, there is also evidence in the form of cut marks on some Stegodon bones indicating that the hominins were butchering these animals (Morwood et al., 2005). ![]() These stone tools resemble those found elsewhere on the island at sites that are closer to a million years in age (Brumm et al., 2006 2010). Presumably Homo floresiensis made the simple Oldowan-like tools (the oldest and most primitive type known in the archaeological record) found in the same layers as the skeletal remains at Liang Bua cave (Moore and Brumm, 2009). Taken together, this is a puzzling pattern: a population that existed between 74 and 18 ka, with a skull that most closely resembles the much older Homo habilis or Homo erectus, and a skeleton that retains some features normally associated with australopith species at least 3 Ma. The skeleton, however, is considerably more primitive and in some respects aligns the LB1 specimen and the other Flores fossils with older and even more primitive species like those belonging to Australopithecus afarensis (which includes "Lucy" Tocheri et al., 2007 Jungers et al., 2009) (link to Ward and Hammond article link to Schrein article). The skull resembles those belonging to extinct species of our own genus Homo (Brown et al., 2004 Baab and McNulty, 2009). Initial descriptions emphasized the mix of ancestral traits that remained unchanged from more ancient species and derived traits that linked it with more recent ones.
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