Question

. Take a look at the skull of Homo floresiensis (nicknamed “the Hobbit”). This is a very small hominin species that lived on the island of Flores in Indonesia at the same time as modern humans were living elsewhere in Southeast Asia, including other parts of Indonesia. There is some controversy among paleoanthropologists concerning whether this hominin should actually be considered a member of Homo sapiens, rather than its own species. Some people believe that this skull, and others that have been found on the island, simply came from a modern human (Homo sapiens) with a very small head, such as we see in people with a condition known as microcephaly. Assume that this is actually the correct interpretation - that “the Hobbits” were a small, isolated population of modern humans that evolved to have very small brains and skulls following their divergence from a mainland Indonesian human population. If this is the case, which evolutionary mechanism(s) might have produced this dramatic change in skull anatomy? Explain your answer.