A team of archaeologists and 3D designers have reconstructed the face of an individual from the extinct species Homo floresiensis, a member of the genus Homo.
Nicknamed “Hobbit“ due to its small stature, Homo floresiensis is an ancient human species with an estimated height of about 1.1 meters. They coexisted on Earth with modern humans, Homo sapiens, and are believed to have gone extinct around 50,000 years ago.
Facial reconstruction of Homo floresiensis. (Image: Cicero Moraes)
The bones of Homo floresiensis were first discovered in 2003 on Flores Island, Indonesia. Since then, scientists have identified more than a dozen other specimens on the island, but many aspects of this mysterious species remain unclear.
In a recent study, Brazilian 3D designer Cicero Moraes and Italian archaeologists Luca Bezzi and Alessandro Bezzi closely examined the skull of Homo floresiensis to reconstruct its face, as reported by IFL Science on June 29. They used the shape and structure of the skull to estimate how soft tissues would have adhered to the bones. The research was based on scans of LB1, an almost complete skeleton of Homo floresiensis found in Liang Bua Cave on Flores Island.
Facial reconstruction based solely on the skull is not an exact science and requires some artistry. This is because the skull’s shape can provide only limited information about how soft tissues, such as muscles and fat, were actually distributed on the face. Furthermore, it is impossible to know for certain what color hair Homo floresiensis had or how much it had, so some features must be based on educated guesses.
Moraes pointed out several differences between Homo floresiensis and modern humans. “Their noses may not have been as high as modern humans, their mouths protruded a bit more than ours, and their brain volume was significantly smaller,” he noted.
To reconstruct the face of this extinct species, the team used CT scans from both humans and chimpanzees. “We modified both to fit the skull structure of Homo floresiensis and supplemented the data to understand what this person’s face might have looked like,” Moraes explained.
This is the first time the face of the “Hobbit” has been reconstructed using data from both humans and chimpanzees. The new study was published in the e-book OrtogOnline at the beginning of June.
