Early stone technology on Flores and its implications for Homo floresiensis

In the Soa Basin of central Flores, eastern Indonesia, stratified archaeological sites, including Mata Menge, Boa Lesa and Kobatuwa (Fig. 1), contain stone artefacts associated with the fossilized remains of Stegodon florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and various other taxa. These sites have been dated t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature 2006-06, Vol.441 (7093), p.624-628
Main Authors: Aziz, Fachroel, Morwood, Michael J, Kurniawan, Iwan, Brumm, Adam, Fullagar, Richard, Moore, Mark W, van den Bergh, Gert D, Hobbs, Douglas R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Archaeological sites
Archaeology
Authenticity
Biological Evolution
Boa
Brain
Discovery and exploration
Equipment and supplies
Fossils
Historic artifacts
Historic buildings & sites
History, Ancient
Hominidae - anatomy & histology
Hominidae - classification
Hominidae - physiology
Homo floresiensis
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Indonesia
letter
multidisciplinary
Phylogeny
Pleistocene
Rats
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Stone implements
Taxa
Technology - history
Time Factors
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Description
Summary:In the Soa Basin of central Flores, eastern Indonesia, stratified archaeological sites, including Mata Menge, Boa Lesa and Kobatuwa (Fig. 1), contain stone artefacts associated with the fossilized remains of Stegodon florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and various other taxa. These sites have been dated to 840–700 kyr bp (thousand years before present). The authenticity of the Soa Basin artefacts and their provenance have been demonstrated by previous work, but to quell lingering doubts, here we describe the context, attributes and production modes of 507 artefacts excavated at Mata Menge. We also note specific similarities, and apparent technological continuity, between the Mata Menge stone artefacts and those excavated from Late Pleistocene levels at Liang Bua cave, 50 km to the west. The latter artefacts, dated to between 95–74 and 12 kyr ago, are associated with the remains of a dwarfed descendent of S. florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and a small-bodied hominin species, Homo floresiensis, which had a brain size of about 400 cubic centimetres. The Mata Menge evidence negates claims that stone artefacts associated with H. floresiensis are so complex that they must have been made by modern humans (Homo sapiens).
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
1476-4679
DOI:10.1038/nature04618