Passage Four
Thediscovery of a dwarfed（矮个子）"humanbeing"who lived in Flores,Indonesia,up to 18,000 years ago is changingthe way we think about the human family.This"Flores Human"was threefoot tall and her brain was smaller than that of the average chimp（黑猩猩）,yet she and her relatives apparently lived fully human lives.They seem to have made tools,worked together to find food and cook it,andperhaps even burried their dead with ceremony.
It was a major surprise to find tools associated with the newhuman family member.The tools are like those formerly seen only with Europeanfossils（化石）from our own species;Homo sapiens（智人）;and the oldest of them were made 9,400 years ago.Homo sapiens isthought to have arrived in the island about 4,000 years ago,much too late tobe responsible for the tools.If this tiny human made the tools,then theinside structure（结构）of its brain must have been morelike our own than a chimp′s,despite being just a third the size of ours.
This"new human"was suspected to be a dwarfed branch ofHomo erectus（直立人,）.When creatures are separated in regionswith rare resources but few enemies,being big is a disadvantage,and evolutiontends to shrink them,a process known as island dwarfing.Could naturalselection make a human smaller while keeping--even improving--mental ability?Quite possibly,believes Christopher Wills of the University of California.
Has the"Flores Human"even shown the ability oflanguage?"I find it difficult to imagine that people could make tools,use fire,and kill large animals without fairly advanced communication,"Wills says.Did"Flores Human"possess the basic components of humanculture--such as the burying of the dead with ceremony?Emiliano Bruner of theItalian Institute points out that Indonesia′s hot,wet environment is bad forfossilization.It is reasonable to assume,he says,that the 18,000-year-oldbones of the most complete Flores woman were well-preserved because she wasburied with special care.
The underlined part"this tinyhuman"in Paragraph 2 refers to__
A.a chimp
B.Flores Human
C.Homo sapiens
D.Homo erectus

相关标签： 直立人   矮个子   黑猩猩