Brain Size?

[fossiltrader]

If the work being done at the moment on the Hobbit shows as it seems to be that the little people in fact hunted and where fairly well organized brain size as such will have to be redefined already the idea that a chimpanzee size brain lead to spear use and tool production is causing waves.
I saw the projected endocast of the brain and i would agree with the people who did the work the Hobbit appears to have a brain similar in shape though smaller than erectus seems folks size may not matter quite as much as many think. Cheers Fossil.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Interesting.
Based on (parts of) how many actually found individuals of the same species, 'HF'?

[fossiltrader]

at last count 8 though i am waiting to find out at the moment how complete these finds are.

[Rokcet Scientist]

That's more than 6 more individuals than the one-and-a-half I was aware of.
Did I miss the publicity about their discoveries, or wasn't there any? If so, why not?

[Beagle]

I've seen pictures of the endocast also. It's of the only skull that has been found. This endocast of this skull (LB1) has been examined here in the US at Columbia University. Very interesting. It has proven that the Hobbit is not a microcephalic.

[Forum Monk]

I have long been under the impression that brain-size, in and of itself, is not a good measure of intelligence. It seems one must consider the size of the more primitive, autonomical and basal structures in proportion to the cerebral structures associated with higher intelligence. In short, did the organism interact with its environment more on an instinctual versus a intellectual level.

Nevertheless, I doubt critical thinking skills are required to achieve the knowlege that tools are beneficial to survival.

[Beagle]

Hi Monk. I agree that brain complexity is the key to intelligence. I doubt however that that complexity can be achieved in a braincase that never gor over 400cc.

My guess is that the Hobbit started as H. Erectus with a brin capacity of about 950cc. This is enough intelligence to get to Flores by sea, make weapons, control fire, and all things associated with Erectus. He wouldn't comprehend mathematics or philosophy very well but he didn't need too.

The he probably underwent a long process of "miniaturization", just like the elephants on the island became "pygmy" elephants. The complexity of the brain would/should remain. That's my guess but I would like to know what a neuroscientist thinks about it.

[Forum Monk]

Hi Beagle,

This guy didn't have a very big cranium either:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2167779,00.html

Clever imitator or intelligence?

[Beagle]

Clever imitator or intelligence?

That argument has been around a while. I don't know, but birds are truly fascinating. A birdwatcher enthusiast would say that birds have their own language, and so have some language structure already present in their brains. Some of them are pleasant to hear outside my window, until they start quarreling. There is probably more going on than we realize.

[fossiltrader]

I know there has been at least one tv special where the 8 discovered where discussed it was never a secret.

[Forum Monk]

Last October a team of Australian and Indonesian archaeologists reported the discovery of the18,000-year-old bones of an adult female hobbit. The only known hobbit skull is from this female, though archaeologists later found partial remains of seven other individuals

Emphasis mine, from -
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... obbit.html

[hardaker]

Here is something that could be really important with respect to intell and brain evolution, and maybe just novel, but as a surfer at heart, I'm a sucker for it. Also maybe it has something to do with the zen of evolution. Anyway, I had to toss this out there. Hope this is appropriate.

According to Dr. Cunnane, a metabolic chemist, a big intelligence boost might have been caused by a seashore diet. It includes a term I had never heard of before, exaptation.

Chris

(from Berkeley web)
"Exaptation - feature that performs a function but that was not produced by natural selection for its current use. Perhaps the feature was produced by natural selection for a function other than the one it currently performs and was then co-opted for its current function. For example, feathers might have originally arisen in the context of selection for insulation, and only later were they co-opted for flight. In this case, the general form of feathers is an adaptation for insulation and an exaptation for flight."

[The tie in is the idea that a seashore diet just happened to accidentally evolve the brain on a metabolic level leading to a greater measure of intelligence. It's all online.]



**********

"According to Dr. Stephen Cunnane it was a rich and secure shore-based diet that fuelled and provided the essential nutrients to make our brains what they are today. Controversially, according to Dr. Cunnane our initial brain boost didn't happen by adaptation, but by exaptation, or chance."

"Anthropologists and evolutionary biologists usually point to things like the rise of language and tool making to explain the massive expansion of early hominid brains. But this is a Catch-22. Something had to start the process of brain expansion and I think it was early humans eating clams, frogs, bird eggs and fish from shoreline environments. This is what created the necessary physiological conditions for explosive brain growth," says Dr. Cunnane, a metabolic physiologist at the University of Sherbrooke in Sherbrooke, Quebec.
The evolutionary growth in hominid brain size remains a mystery and a major point of contention among anthropologists. Our brains weigh roughly twice as much as our similarly sized earliest human relative, Homo habilis two million years ago. The big question is which came first – the bigger brain or the social, linguistic and tool-making skills we associate with it?
But, Dr. Cunnane argues that most anthropologists are ignorant or dismissive of the key missing link to help answer this question: the metabolic constraints that are critical for healthy human brain development today, and for its evolution.
Human brains aren't just comparatively big, they're hungry. The average newborn's brain consumes an amazing 75-per cent of an infant's daily energy needs. According to Dr. Cunnane, to fuel this neural demand, human babies are born with a built-in energy reservoir – that cute baby fat. Human infants are the only primate babies born with excess fat. It accounts for about 14 per cent of their birth weight, similar to that of their brains."

Elsewhere Cunnane summarizes.

"One of the most controversial aspects of Dr. Cunnane’s theory that really fires up the opposition is that humans became complete brain-boxes by chance, rather than adaptation. It was by chance that early humans started eating the foods with the necessary minerals and nutrients that fed the already inherent potential for brain growth in early humans, reckons Cunnane. "Initially there wasn't selection for a larger brain," he explains. "The genetic possibility was there, but it remained silent until it was catalyzed by this shore-based diet." It is this hypothesis that forms the basis for Cunnane’s book entitled Survival of the Fattest, published in 2005."

[Forum Monk]

Interesting. Based on this I conclude whales and dolphins really are more intelligent than humans.

(But in the morning, I'll probably recant that statement.)

[hardaker]

Sorry. Forgot the link.
http://www.livescience.com/health/06022 ... brain.html

[Forum Monk]

I also, have not heard of the additional finds until tonight's scouring of the web. Seems 9 individuals of HF have been identified but only the one brain case from the original LB1 specimen.

Recent (later than Jan 2007) news is scant, but it seems microcephly is still a reasonable conclusion. The following link has some pics in which symettry studies were made. The skull appears atypical even for an alleged 'hobbit'.

http://www.physorg.com/news75393555.html