Linda Hall Library
5109 Cherry Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64110
5109 Cherry Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64110
Matt Tocheri is a paleoanthropologist in the Human Origins Program of the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. He received his academic degrees in anthropology from Lakehead University (HBA) in Thunder Bay, Canada, and Arizona State University (M.A. and Ph.D.). Dr. Tocheri's main research interests surround the evolutionary history and functional morphology of the human and great ape family, the Hominidae. His work on the wrist of Homo floresiensis, the so-called 'hobbits' of human evolution, received considerable attention worldwide after it was published in 2007 in the journal Science.
A Linda Hall Library Lecture Series
The Pleistocene Meets Middle Earth:
The Significance of the Indonesian Hobbits
Matthew Tocheri, National Museum of Natural History
May 10 at 7 p.m. in the Main Reading Room of the Linda Hall Library
The Significance of the Indonesian Hobbits
Matthew Tocheri, National Museum of Natural History
May 10 at 7 p.m. in the Main Reading Room of the Linda Hall Library
In 2003, a tiny 18,000-year-old hominin skeleton found on the island of Flores, Indonesia, rattled the scientific community. The skeletal evidence suggests that adults of this species had extremely small brains, stood only about 3'6" tall, and weighed around 66 pounds. More surprising is that they lived until 12,000 to 20,000 years ago, overlapping with modern humans. Are the 'hobbits' a new species previously unrecognized on the human family tree? Or are they modern humans who suffered from a genetic disease?
Smithsonian paleoanthropologist Matt Tocheri believes the wrist bones provide the answer to these questions. In this presentation, Dr. Tocheri leads a fascinating journey from the caves of Flores, Indonesia, to his laboratory where 3-D laser scans of hobbit wrist bones showed that they were nearly indistinguishable from those of an African ape or early hominin-like wrist and nothing at all like wrist bones found in modern humans and Neanderthals. More importantly, the findings supported the conclusion that hobbits are indeed a branch of early human and not deformed modern humans.
Smithsonian paleoanthropologist Matt Tocheri believes the wrist bones provide the answer to these questions. In this presentation, Dr. Tocheri leads a fascinating journey from the caves of Flores, Indonesia, to his laboratory where 3-D laser scans of hobbit wrist bones showed that they were nearly indistinguishable from those of an African ape or early hominin-like wrist and nothing at all like wrist bones found in modern humans and Neanderthals. More importantly, the findings supported the conclusion that hobbits are indeed a branch of early human and not deformed modern humans.