Liang Bua is a limestone cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia, slightly north of the town of Ruteng in Manggarai Regency, East Nusa Tenggara. The cave demonstrated archaeological and paleontological potential in the 1950s and 1960s as described by the Dutch missionary and archaeologist Theodor L. Verhoeven.

thumb|The skeleton of a Homo floresiensis woman at the Natural History Museum in London, England

In September 2003, an Indonesian field team and its coordinator of the excavation team, , uncovered the first indications of a skull. Initially, the archeologists only analyzed the top of the cranium and due to the small size believed that the skull belonged to a small child. However, Sutikna and his colleagues soon discovered that its teeth were permanent and mature, revealing that it actually belonged to a fully grown adult. After a few weeks, the team had discovered most of this particular hominid's skeleton and later was coded LB1, LB2, etc., after the name of the cave. Despite the small stature and brain size, Homo floresiensis was capable of using stone tools, hunting animals such as small elephants and rodents, and dealing with many predators such as large komodo dragons. As of 2022, excavations are still being conducted and additional findings such as teeth are being discovered and analyzed.

History of discoveries

Theodor L. Verhoeven, a Dutch missionary and archaeologist, was living in Flores in the 1950s and 60s. Verhoeven had been a keen student of archeology at the University of Utrecht. During this time, he worked at a Catholic seminary and in his free time would explore many archeological sites and perform many excavations in Flores. He discovered stone tools and suspected that Homo erectus from Java had made these. However, Verhoeven's work was not acknowledged by many paleoanthropologists at this time. After 30 years, an Indonesian-Dutch excavation team discovered new evidence that suggest that Verhoeven's predictions were correct.

In 2001, an Indonesian-Australian team began excavations in Liang Bua. Their goal was to excavate deeper into the cave hoping to see if modern or pre-modern humans were using Liang Bua. By looking at just the top of the skull, Awe believed it belonged to a small child due to the small size of the cranium. However, after several days of excavating, more of the cranium and mandible became exposed. This allowed Awe to further analyze the age and condition of the skull. They discovered that its teeth were permanent, revealing that this skull actually belonged to an adult. Brown concluded that the proportions between the humerus and femur were very similar to the proportions in Australopithecus and Homo habilis.  On the other hand, LB6 consisted of a partial skeleton that appeared shorter than LB1 and its jaw was significantly different as it was more V-shaped. Scientists assume that LB6 was a child and was approximately five years old. This suggests that these species at Liang Bua were alive during modern times and could have possibly shared this island with modern humans for approximately 30,000 years. Sutikna proposed that Homo sapiens could have coexisted with the "hobbits" for thousands of years and he also proposed that Homo sapiens could have led to the extinction of Homo floresiensis. However, there is no evidence to indicate that and as of 2016 research was still being conducted to prove his hypothesis.

In 2016, scientists discovered a lower jaw and teeth from at least one adult and potentially two children in Mata Menge, about 70 km east of Liang Bua. These findings are dated to about 700,000 years BP and could possibly be an early form of Homo floresiensis. In addition, archaeologists discovered stone tools in the cave that were used from 190,000 to 50,000 years BP. Change in material used in creating stone tools suggests that stone tools made from 46,000 years ago onwards were produced by modern humans, and not H. floresiensis. These stone tools provide the earliest evidence for modern human arrival on Flores.

Palaeofauna

After

  • Homo floresiensis
  • Stegodon florensis insularis, extinct dwarfed stegodontid proboscidean
  • Papagomys theodorverhoeveni, extinct giant rat
  • Papagomys armandvillei, giant rat
  • Spelaeomys florensis, extinct giant rat
  • Lawomys rokusi large probably extinct shrew-rat
  • medium-sized rat
  • Komodomys rintjanus small rat
  • Rattus exulans (Polynesian rat)
  • Rattus hainaldi small rat
  • Varanus komodoensis, (Komodo dragon)
  • Varanus hooijeri extinct frugivorous monitor lizard
  • Leptoptilos robustus, extinct giant stork
  • Trigonoceps sp., extinct vulture

References

Further reading

  • Brown, P.; Sutikna, T., Morwood, M. J., Soejono, R. P., Jatmiko, Wayhu Saptomo, E. & Rokus Awe Due (October 27, 2004). "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia.". Nature, 431. .
  • Morwood, M. J.; Soejono, R. P., Roberts, R. G., Sutikna, T., Turney, C. S. M., Westaway, K. E., Rink, W. J., Zhao, J.- X., van den Bergh, G. D., Rokus Awe Due, Hobbs, D. R., Moore, M. W., Bird, M. I. & Fifield, L. K. (October 27, 2004). "Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia.". Nature 431: 1087–1091. .
  • Knepper, Gert M. (2019): Floresmens - Het leven van Theo Verhoeven, missionaris en archeoloog. (Boekscout, Soest, The Netherlands) (= Verhoeven's biography, in Dutch)