Becoming Human

In a paper appearing on September 20 in Science, analysis of the wrist bones of Homo floresiensis demonstrates this skeleton could not be a dwarf human, as has been argued. The paper also adds to the accumulating evidence the specimen is a strange mix of nearly modern and very primitive characteristics.

The suggestion interbreeding occurred between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens nearly 40,000 years ago, announced in papers published last November in both Science and Nature, has now been called into question.