The Homo Floresiensis

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The world of paleoanthropology is constantly changing as people make new discoveries at digging sites or in an office examining fossils. Things are constantly shifting in that world and changing modern day human’s understanding of the past and their evolution. When looking at fossils, they try to see how much variation is needed to name it a new species or not. There are different fossils that are currently being argued about, where it is questioned if the fossil should be classified as a different species or a new one. One of those fossils that is currently being debated on is the Homo Floresiensis, known as “The Hobbit” to paleoanthropologists. It is argued whether Homo Floresiensis is a species, or if is a ruminant of evolution. The arguments …show more content…
Speciation is how new species are made which involves a form of isolation (Lewis et al., 2013, p. 103). It also is about the divergence of genetic information between two species that once were the same but they separated and were unable to reproduce with one another and over time as they evolved they become genetically different due to these conditions (Lewis et al., 2013, p. 103). An important for of isolation is geographical isolation when there is a geographical barrier (Lewis et al., 2013, p. 103). The Homo Floresiensis was geographically isolated as it was isolated on an island with other mammals with no interaction with other species like it (“Homo Floresiensis,” 2015). According to these listings of speciation the Homo Floresiensis would be categorized as its own species as it is at the moment, but there is still debate on its speciation due to its stature (“Homo Floresiensis,”2015). Adaptive radiation is a process when a species quickly takes advantage of new ecological niches that are available (Lewis et al., 2013, p. 113). As they adapt to those new niches they diversity into a large number of species (Lewis et al., 2013, p. 113). Its adaptive potential and the opportunities of the new niches leads to a species to diverge into many variations (Lewis et al., 2013, p. 113). The adaptive radiation of Homo Floresiensis was a well one as they created tools, and hunted other mammals like large rodents and small elephants on the island, taking advantage of the available niche to them (“Homo Floresiensis,” 2015). Both of these factors help shed more light on the

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