国家地理-2008-03-22 Ancient Little People 古代侏儒的骸骨（在线收听）

Scientists from a South African university have found evidence of a population of what they say were small-bodied modern humans on an island of Palau, east of the Philippines.

Lee Berger has spent his professional life searching for evidence of mankind's past. He is a paleo-anthropologist who with some help from National Geographic has been studying and searching for the fossil remains of our ancestors for nearly 20 years.

He has done most of his work in Africa, but it was during a vacation stop in Palau, and a walk through one of the many caves in this area that he literally stumbled upon what could be a history-making find.

''You see that, this is just packed full of buff, I mean you can actually see there are still some naturally exposed here. But what was cool here is we had a whole skull here.''

Berger thinks these bones may be the remains of some of the earliest humans ever to populate these islands. Previous estimates date the earliest human habitation to about 29 hundred years ago, but all these bones existed above something called a flowstone. A flowstone is a common occurrence in caves where mineral-rich water flowing over the ground hardens in the stone. All of Berger’s previous digging was another flowstone that dated back about 29 hundred years. Today he's returned and is going to break through the flowstone to see if there are bones underneath. ''We are hoping that flowstone and consolidated sandstone took at least a few hundred years to form maybe longer than that. Hope is that these dates are gonna come out over the three-thousand-year mark.''

He finds no shortage of bone underneath the flowstone including a tooth and a piece of cranium. But what these bones begin to tell Berger has far-reaching implications beyond the dating. The bones that Berger has found has some very unusual characteristics, a reduced chin, large teeth and what might be a small brain-size, leading Berger to reconsider his notion of what humans can look like. 

''That’s nice. We have found this small island population with all of these characters and that appears to be human that is pushing the published boundaries of human variation.''

It might also have some implications for another set of bones found in the region, those of the tiny human that researchers dubbed ''the hobbit''. Its scientific name is Homo Floresiensis. And the researchers including Dean Falk from the University of Florida say it is so unique, it should be a separate species of human. The controversy of the hobbit is ongoing, but Berger’s finding let him to believe that Flores might not be a separate species.

''...and also making me personally consider my understanding of what is normal even variation.

Berger’s published a paper suggesting the bones are amazing because they show the incredible range of humans, in regards to size and shape. This new understanding of the potential of human variation might make us reconsider just how different the hobbits really are. The controversies will continue, but in the meantime, Berger will return.

''What has struck me on this second scientific visit is how phenomenally little research has been done on these islands. ''

But Berger hopes to personally change that in the coming years, as he makes his way back to Palau, to continue his search for answers to our past.

paleo-anthropologist 古人类学家
 
paleo- relating to very ancient times

stumble upon  stumble on/across/upon [stumble on/across/upon sth] phr v

to find or discover something by chance and unexpectedly

populate

(a) [Tn esp passive 尤用於被动语态] (a) live in (an area) and form its population居住於（某地区）（而构成其人口成分）: deserts populated by nomadic tribesmen 游牧部落居住的沙漠地区
 
(b) move to (an area) and fill it with people 落户於, 移居於（某地区）; 向（某地区）移民: The islands were gradually populated by settlers from Europe. 岛上逐渐迁入很多欧洲移民.

flowstone

[地]流石
 
cranium 

bony part of the head enclosing the brain; skull 头盖骨; 颅骨.

hobbit

An imaginary creature resembling a diminutive human being, having some rabbitlike characteristics, and being naturally peace-loving, domestic, and sociable.

小矮人：一种类似于矮人的想象中的动物，有一些兔子的特征，生性酷爱和平、驯服及易于交往