Brown Et Al

question 26

Multiple Choice

Brown et al. and Morwood et al. reported in 2004 that they had found skeletal remains of a previously unknown type of hominin, now dubbed Homo floresiensis, on the Indonesian island of Flores. These hominins were small (approximately 1 metre tall) with small braincases (approximately 380 cubic centimetres) as compared with other hominins. The remains of H. floresiensis were found alongside handmade stone tools and the remains of dwarf elephants that also inhabited the island, suggesting that H. floresiensis was able both to make tools and to coordinate the hunting of animals much larger than itself. H. floresiensis is estimated to have lived at the site where the remains were found from at least 38,000 years ago to 18,000 years ago.
It is speculated that H. floresiensis and H. sapiens may have lived on Flores concurrently. Suppose researchers obtained mitochondrial DNA samples from the H. floresiensis remains, amplified a 1,000-base-pair sequence via PCR, and compared it to that of several currently living H. sapiens native to Indonesia, North Africa, and North America. Also suppose H. floresiensis were found to differ from the average Indonesian H. sapiens in 28 base pairs, from the average North African H. sapiens in 51 base pairs, and from the average North American H. sapiens in 53 base pairs, while two randomly selected H. sapiens differed from each other in an average of 21 base pairs. What would you surmise from these data?

• A) H. floresiensis and H. sapiens probably did not live on Flores concurrently.
• B) H. floresiensis and H. sapiens probably lived on Flores concurrently but did not interact.
• C) H. floresiensis and H. sapiens probably lived on Flores concurrently, and H. sapiens killed and consumed H. floresiensis.
• D) H. floresiensis and H. sapiens probably lived on Flores concurrently and interbred to some degree.

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