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The evidence that Homo floresiensis was a reasonably intelligent early
species of small-brained human is exciting but sketchy. Anthropologists have
found only one near-complete skull of the species, and a debate rages over
whether this individual—a roughly 30-year-old, three-foot-tall
female—was typical. One thing is clear, however: her brain was closer in
size to a chimpanzee's than to a modern human's. Below, examine three
endocasts, or approximate models of the brain, made of each of the three species. Click and drag on the images to rotate them.
(Requires QuickTime plugin)
Note on Endocasts
The measurements above come from a March 3, 2005 paper in Science,
"The Brain of LB1, Homo floresiensis," by Dean Falk et al., 308: 242-245,
table 1. Dr. Falk and her coauthors generated measurements of the Homo
floresiensis brain cavity using a "virtual endocast" created with computer
tomography (CT) scanning data. The Homo floresiensis endocast pictured here
is a cast from those CT scan data. Experts created the other two endocasts
above by pouring material into the brain cavity of both a chimp skull and a
modern human skull. The chimp and modern human measurements came from other
endocasts also prepared that way.
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