Rampasasa

Last updated

Rampasasa pygmies is a name given to a group of families described as pygmoid or Negrito, native to Waemulu village in Kecamatan Wae Rii, Manggarai Regency, Flores, Indonesia, following the discovery of Homo floresiensis in the nearby Liang Bua cave in 2003. [1] [2]

The Rampasasa have since been reported as claiming Homo floresiensis as their ancestor and as "cashing in on hobbit craze". [3]

A genetic study published in 2018 discounted the possibility of the Rampasasa descending from H. floresiensis, concluding that "multiple independent instances of hominin insular dwarfism occurred on Flores". However, as no genetic material from H. floresiensis was included in the analyses, any truly definitive conclusions cannot be made. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human evolution</span> Evolutionary process leading to anatomically modern humans

Human evolution is the evolutionary process within the history of primates that led to the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species of the hominid family that includes all the great apes. This process involved the gradual development of traits such as human bipedalism, dexterity, and complex language, as well as interbreeding with other hominins, indicating that human evolution was not linear but weblike. The study of the origins of humans involves several scientific disciplines, including physical and evolutionary anthropology, paleontology, and genetics; the field is also known by the terms anthropogeny, anthropogenesis, and anthropogony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flores</span> Island of the Lesser Sunda Islands in Indonesia

Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Administratively, it forms the largest island in the East Nusa Tenggara Province. Including Komodo and Rinca islands off its west coast, the land area is 14,731.67 km2, and the population was 1,878,875 in the 2020 Census ; the official estimate as of mid-2023 was 1,962,405. The largest towns are Maumere and Ende. The name Flores is of Portuguese origin, meaning "Flowers".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homininae</span> Subfamily of mammals

Homininae, is a subfamily of the family Hominidae (hominids). This subfamily includes two tribes, Hominini and Gorillini, both having extant (=living) species as well as extinct species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pygmy peoples</span> Ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short

In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature for populations in which adult men are on average less than 150 cm tall.

<i>Homo</i> Genus of hominins that includes humans and their closest extinct relatives

Homo is a genus of great ape that emerged from the genus Australopithecus and encompasses the extant species Homo sapiens and a number of extinct species classified as either ancestral or closely related to modern humans. These include Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. The oldest member of the genus is Homo habilis, with records of just over 2 million years ago. Homo, together with the genus Paranthropus, is probably most closely related to the species Australopithecus africanus within Australopithecus. The closest living relatives of Homo are of the genus Pan, with the ancestors of Pan and Homo estimated to have diverged around 5.7-11 million years ago during the Late Miocene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Little people (mythology)</span> Mythological humanoid creatures of small stature

Little people have been part of the folklore of many cultures in human history, including Ireland, Greece, the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand, Flores Island, Indonesia, and Native Americans.

<i>Homo floresiensis</i> Archaic human from Flores, Indonesia

Homo floresiensis( also known as "Flores Man") is an extinct species of small archaic human that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ebu gogo</span> Creatures in Indonesian folklore

The Ebu Gogo are a group of human-like creatures that appear in the folklore of Flores, Indonesia. In the Nage language of central Flores, ebu means "grandparent" and gogo means "one who eats anything". A colloquial English equivalent might be something like "old glutton".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liang Bua</span> Cave and archaeological site in Indonesia

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postcanine megadontia</span> Relative enlargement of pre-molars and molars compared with other teeth.

Post-canine megadontia is a relative enlargement of the molars and premolars compared to the size of the incisors and canines. This phenomenon is seen in some early hominid ancestors such as Paranthropus aethiopicus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dean Falk</span> American neuroanthropologist

Dean Falk is an American academic neuroanthropologist who specializes in the evolution of the brain and cognition in higher primates. She is the Hale G. Smith Professor of Anthropology and a Distinguished Research Professor at Florida State University.

Theodorus (Theo) Lambertus Verhoeven, SVD, was a Dutch missionary and archaeologist who has become famous by his discovery of stone tools on the Indonesian island of Flores, in association with the c. 800,000-year-old fossils of stegodontids, or dwarf elephants, from which he concluded that islands in Wallacea had been reached by Homo erectus before modern humans appeared there.

William L. Jungers was an American anthropologist, Distinguished Teaching Professor and the Chair of the Department of Anatomical Sciences at State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island, New York. He is best known for his work on the biomechanics of bipedal locomotion in hominids such as the 3.4-million-year-old Lucy, and the 6.1- to 5.8-million-year-old Millennium Man Orrorin tugenensis. He devoted much of his career to the study of the lemurs of Madagascar, especially giant extinct subfossil forms such as Megaladapis. More recently, Jungers has been a subject of media attention due to his analysis of the remains of Homo floresiensis, which he believed to be legitimate members of a newly discovered species based on remains of the shoulder, the wrist, and the feet.

Teuku Jacob was an Indonesian paleoanthropologist. As a student of Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald in the 1950s, Jacob claimed to have discovered and studied numerous specimens of Homo erectus. He came to international prominence as a vocal critic of scientists who believed remains discovered in Flores belonged to a new species in the genus Homo, Homo floresiensis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prehistoric Indonesia</span>

Prehistoric Indonesia is a prehistoric period in the Indonesian archipelago that spanned from the Pleistocene period to about the 4th century CE when the Kutai people produced the earliest known stone inscriptions in Indonesia. Unlike the clear distinction between prehistoric and historical periods in Europe and the Middle East, the division is muddled in Indonesia. This is mostly because Indonesia's geographical conditions as a vast archipelago caused some parts — especially the interiors of distant islands — to be virtually isolated from the rest of the world. West Java and coastal Eastern Borneo, for example, began their historical periods in the early 4th century, but megalithic culture still flourished and script was unknown in the rest of Indonesia, including in Nias and Toraja. The Papuans on the Indonesian part of New Guinea island lived virtually in the Stone Age until their first contacts with modern world in the early 20th century. Even today living megalithic traditions still can be found on the island of Sumba and Nias.

<i>Homo luzonensis</i> Archaic human from Luzon, Philippines

Homo luzonensis, also known as Callao Man and locally called "Ubag" after a mythical caveman, is an extinct, possibly pygmy, species of archaic human from the Late Pleistocene of Luzon, the Philippines. Their remains, teeth and phalanges, are known only from Callao Cave in the northern part of the island dating to before 50,000 years ago. They were initially identified as belonging to modern humans in 2010, but in 2019, after the discovery of more specimens, they were placed into a new species based on the presence of a wide range of traits similar to modern humans as well as to Australopithecus and early Homo. In 2023, a study found that the fossilized remains were 134,000 ± 14,000 years old, much older than previously thought.

Professor Michael John Morwood was a New Zealand archaeologist best known for discovering Homo floresiensis. In 2012, he received the Rhys Jones Medal by the Australian Archaeological Association.

Mata Menge is an early Middle Pleistocene paleoanthropological site located in the Ola Bula Formation in the So'a Basin on the island of Flores, Indonesia. Lithic artefacts and hominin remains have been discovered at the site. The level of sophistication of the Mata Menge lithic artefacts is described as being 'simple'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archaic humans in Southeast Asia</span>

The region of Southeast Asia is considered a possible place for the evidence of archaic human remains that could be found due to the pathway between Australia and mainland Southeast Asia, where the migration of multiple early humans has occurred out of Africa. One of many pieces of evidence is of the early human found in central Java of Indonesia in the late 19th century by Eugene Dubois, and later in 1937 at Sangiran site by G.H.R. van Koenigswald. These skull and fossil materials are Homo erectus, named Pithecanthropus erectus by Dubois and Meganthropus palaeojavanicus by van Koenigswald. They were dated to c. 1.88 and 1.66 Ma, as suggested by Swisher et al. by analysis of volcanic rocks.

Gregory L. Forth is a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta. He earned his PhD from University of Oxford in 1980. Beginning in 1986, Forth was a professor at the University of Alberta for over thirty years. Forth is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

References

  1. Gregory Forth, Images of the Wildman in Southeast Asia: An Anthropological Perspective, Routledge (2008), p. 432.
  2. Maciej Henneberg, Robert B Eckhardt, John Schofield, The Hobbit Trap: How New Species Are Invented, Routledge (2016), p. 87.
  3. Michael Casey, Associated Press, 3 September 2010 "Indonesian villages cashing in on 'hobbit' craze
  4. Science magazine Vol. 361, Issue 6401 (3 Aug 2018), pp. 511-516 sciencemag.org

8°32′S120°27′E / 8.533°S 120.450°E / -8.533; 120.450