53. Relatives in Oceania
by George Weber
The Palau Island Pygmies
Location of the Palau islands in the western Pacific:
In 2006 Prof. Lee R. Berger (of the Institute for Human Evolution and the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontology, School of GeoSciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa) discovered small-bodied human remains in a number of caves in the Pacific islands republic of Palau. He made his discovery while, of all things, kayaking in Palau during a vacation! His holiday must surely rank as one of the most scientifically productive time-offs in history.
The following description of this remarkable find is based mostly on the PLoS ONE article "Small-Bodied Humans from Palau, Micronesia" by Lee R. Berger, Steven E. Churchill, Bonita De Klerk, and Rhonda L. Quinn. The original with much more detail than can be given here is accessible on the internet under Small-Bodied Humans from Palau, Micronesia.
Citation: Berger LR, Churchill SE, De Klerk B, Quinn RL (2008) Small-Bodied Humans from Palau, Micronesia. PLoS ONE 3(3): e1780. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001780. Published 12 March 2008.
Photographs are reproduced with permission from Prof. Berger.
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THE REPUBLIC OF PALAU Population: estimated 2001 just under 20,000 persons,
a Ruy Lopos de Villalobos, the Spanish explorer, discovered and annexed his discovery to the Spanish crown in 1574. The islands were too small and too remote to be of great value to the Spanish, however. Only in the 19th century did they begin to colonize the islands. After the Spanish lost the war against the US in 1898 Palau was purchased by the winner. At the beginning of the first World War, Japan occupied the islands and later administered them under a mandate of the League of Nations. During World War 2, Japan used Palau as one of the bases from which to invade the Philppines in 1941 and for attacking the Dutch in Indonesia and the British/Australians in Papua-Newguinea in 1942. Palau also saw very heavy fighting between the Japanese and US forces before the Japanese surrendered in September 1945. The islands then came under the control of the US Navy until 1951 when the administration was transferred to the US Department of th Interior. Palau became part of the new UN Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) which besides the Palau Islands also also included the Marshall islands, Ponape, Truk, the Marianas and Yap. Administrative headquarters were originally in Honolulu but were then moved to Guam and finally to Saipan. In the 1970s, the districts of the TTPI voted to end the trustee relationship with the US and in 1986 the US notified the UN that its obligations were fulfilled. The UN formally dissolved the Trust Territory in 1990. Palau voted to end its trustee status in 1994 as the last of the Trust Territory districts and became a free associatiate of the US which provides for full self-government (except for defence which remains with the US). |
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The central group of islands of the Palau Republic. Modern settttlements: The remains of a prehistoric dwarf population were found in two caves in the reddish area of the map. The exact locations are kept secret for security reasons.
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Prof. Berger, the discoverer of the Palau Pygmies, at work on his discovery. |
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Ucheliungs Cave The bones were probably moved to the back of the cave by sea water entering the cave. |
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The schematic stratigraphy of Ucheliungs Cave (see map
above). Berger et al report C14 dates as follows: Level 1: 2,340 ±50 years before the present Level 2: 2,430 ±50 years before the present Level 3: 2,440 ±50 years before the present Level 4: 2,690 ±50 years before the present Level 5: 2,710 ±50 years before the present |
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Omedokel Cave
In this cave, too, the human bones are likely to have been moved around inside the cave by entering sea water. A picture of the Omedokel skull can be found immediately below. |
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The discoverers write regarding the cranial capacity of the Palauans: The only crania complete enough to allow determination of endocranial volume are heavily encased in flowstone, which has deterred our best efforts to estimate brain size in the Palauan sample. Nevertheless, it is clear from these specimens that the brain size is small, possibly at the very low end or below that typically observed in modern small-bodied humans. Other recovered cranial remains are fragmentary, and accurate endocranial volumes have not yet been established for this sample. We have however, attempted (with varying degrees of success) to estimate cranial capacity through correlating three facial measurements with endocranial capacities in a large sample of modern humans. Our results show clearly that the average endocranial volume of the Palauan sample recovered to date will almost certainly fall below the low end of the range (1000 cc) of our sample of 147 modern humans (which includes small bodied modern humans). Based upon these results and the size and morphology of other recovered neurocranial elements, brain sizes &endash; while not ape-like as seen in Homo floersiensis) &endash; are likely at or below the low end of small bodied modern human variation, but within that of Homo erectus. |
As the discoverers ruefully note, it will take years to chisel even one skull out of its protective flowstone cover. On the positive side may be that the flowstone could have preserved the covered bone in even the most minute detail, perhaps even organic remains.
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The skull found in the Omedokel Cave is heavily encrusted with flowstone and wedged between two boulders which have distorted it partially. Nevertheless, the skull retains the same facial characters as the remainder of the sample (reproduced from ref. L. R. Berger et al, 2008). The bones found were piled up by waves on the cave floor and covered by layers of sand. Several skulls were found but they were all covered and cemented by flow stone.
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Two distinct human groups are represented in the two caves by their bones:
1. a relatively recent Polynesian people whose remains are concentrated near the entrance of the caves, they represent modern Homo sapiens with dates ranging from 2,900 to 900 years before the present. These are most likely to represent the ancestors of the present native Palauans.
2. a more ancient pygmy-like population (C14-dated from 2,900 to 1,400 years before the present) was discovered in the deeper recesses of the caves. These remains suggest a short-statured population with body heights ranging from 0.94 cm to 1.2 m and an estimated body weight of 31.5 to 40.5 kg. The older bones also differ from modern humans in that they show some primitive features of Homo sapiens.
On the one hand, the Palau pygmies are similar in stature to Homo floresiensis from Flores island, Indonesia (also known as "Hobbits", see our chapter 49. Indonesia). But body height is not everything. The Palauans in other ways are anatomically closer to modern Homo sapiens than to the Hobbits. Palauan brain size is double that of the Hobbits and much closer to that of modern humans, while their shape of face and hips also are those of modern humans.
On the other hand, there are differences apart from stature to modern humans and similarities to the Hobbits. Some of the Palau pygmies lacked chins, had relatively large jaws and teeth, and relatively small eye sockets. These are features that once were were considered relevant when declaring the Hobbits to be an "archaic" people. The Palau people now seem to indicate that that these traits are caused by insular dwarfism which is an evolutionary process occurring in many mammal species (including, apparently, in humans) in restricted island environments.
Palau has no native terrestrial mammals or large reptiles that those earliest inhabitants could have hunted. Archaeological remains indicate that fishing in the area began only around 1,700 years ago, when Polynesians colonized Palau. It is not clear what the Palauans hunted and gathered and how they lived.
The researchers believe that the extremely small size of the first Palauans was due to the limited food items, tropical climate, lack of predators, a small founding gene pool and long isolation. Such an adaptation (if it took place on Paulau and the new arrivals were not already pymgies when they first stepped ashore) would take many thousands of years. It remains a completely open question just how long before the oldest date so far (2,900 years before the present) they had occupied the island.
The controversy raging around the interpretation and classification of Hobbits has already spilt over into the interpretation of the oldest Palauans and it will spill a great deal more in the coming months and years, no doubt.
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Mandible illustrating a number of characters apparently common among the earliest Palauans: - dental crowding of the anterior teeth, |
The authors note that orbital dimensions are small even relative to female pygmies from the Andaman Islands, and that average orbital and nasal breadth values in the Palauans fall below mean values for a comparative sample of small-bodied modern humans (San people from the Kalahari desert, South Africa). They do, however, come close to reported values for the Hobbit LB1. A similar pattern is seen in mandibular dimensions. While facial dimensions in the Palauan sample are absolutely smaller than those of the San, their faces are larger relative to body size. Associated craniofacial and postcranial elements are lacking in the Palauan sample, making it difficult to evaluate facial-to-body size proportions.
The sex of the individuals represented by the specimens is unknown. The authors compared mass estimates to the mean mass estimate derived from a pooled sex sample of Andamanese Onge femora The mean estimate derived from the two Palauan femora does not differ significantly from the pooled sex Onge mean
The more than 61 measurable postcranial elements recovered from both caves caves also indicate body sizes at the lower extreme of recent human variation and in some cases the range of small-bodied australopithecines (such as the small bodied australopithecine "Little Foot" from South Africa).
The authors, however, are careful to point out that body size estimation techniques generally have large associated errors, especially at the extreme ends of the size ranges of the samples. Still, the rough estimates provide a tentative indication of the small size of the early Palauans.
The discovery of Lee R. Berger, Steven E. Churchill, Bonita De Klerk, and Rhonda L. Quinn throws a completely new light on the earliest human populations in the Pacific. It is much too early to say what affiliations the earliest Palauans had with possibly still existing groups. But the mere possibility that "our" Negritos could have been the first humans to drift accidentally, paddle or sail deliberately out into the Pacific, that thought leaves us stunned.
Useful links:
- http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0001780
- http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/pacific/palau-berger-faq-2008.html
- http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080310-palau-bones.html
- http://web.wits.ac.za/NewsRoom/NewsItems/palau.htm
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Last change 15 April 2008
