Fresh scandal over old bones

Fresh scandal over old bones
By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
Inside Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, the bones of the
hobbit rested undisturbed for 18,000 years.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2005-03-21-hobbit-usat_x.htm


By Peter Schouten, National Geographic Society/AFP

But no longer.

In what is being called a true case of scientific skullduggery, the remains
of the newly discovered human species have suffered irreparable damage since
entering the care of paleontologists.

The damage to the bones of this diminutive being - named Homo floresiensis
and nicknamed hobbit by scientists - is so extensive that it will limit
scholarly research on the species, say members of the Indonesian Center for
Archaeology-based discovery team.

Considered the most important discovery in human origins in five decades,
the remains are marred by broken jaws and smashed bones.

"The equivalent in the world of art would be somebody slashing the Mona Lisa
and then trying to fix it with chewing gum," says paleontologist Tim White
of the University of California-Berkeley, who was not on the discovery team.

Reported in October's Nature magazine by a team of Australian and Indonesian
researchers, the discovery of Homo floresiensis shocked paleontologists. The
beings lived on Flores from at least 94,000 to 13,000 years ago, making them
the only human species besides Neanderthals that lived alongside modern man,
Homo sapiens, in ancient times.

Despite having chimp-sized brains and standing about 3 feet tall, they
hunted pygmy elephants and Komodo dragons using complex stone blades and
axes like those then wielded by modern humans.

A reconstruction of the hobbit's face is on the cover of April's National
Geographic, and the National Geographic Channel's Search for the Ultimate
Survivor (April 1, 8 p.m. ET) highlights hobbit links to pre-human species.

In November, the research took a bizarre turn into the politics of
paleontology. Teuku Jacob of Gadjah Mada University, an Indonesian scientist
unaffiliated with the discovery team, took the partly fossilized bones to
his lab in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 275 miles away from their repository in
Jakarta.

What followed was a standoff that set an older generation of Indonesian and
Australian paleontologists against younger scientists. Jacob, 75, is
considered Indonesia's most prominent paleontologist, a role with added
status in a country that reveres age and seniority.

On the other side is the team of scientists that is based at the Indonesian
Center for Archaeology but whose work is funded by the Australian Research
Council.

Aside from four leg bones that remain in Jacob's custody, the fossils were
returned on Feb. 23. The team charges the remains were severely damaged by
rubber molds made at Jacob's lab:

.. Much of the detail at the base of the skull was pulled off.

.. The left outer eye socket and two teeth were broken off and glued back.
Bits of molded rubber still adhere to some sections.

.. Long, deep cuts mark the lower edge of the hobbit's jaw on both sides,
left by a blade used to cut away molded rubber.

.. The chin of a second hobbit jaw was snapped off, losing bone. It was glued
back together misaligned and at an incorrect angle.

.. The pelvis was smashed, perhaps in transit, destroying details that reveal
body shape, gait and evolutionary history.

"We have a big dispute with Professor Jacob," says Tony Djubiantono, chief
of the archaeology center and co-leader of the team. "We didn't give him
permission to do any of these things."

The return of the bones to the Jakarta center is cloaked in mystery, says
discovery team member Richard Roberts of Australia's University of
Wollongong. The team believes the government intervened. Paleoanthropologist
Harry Widianto of the Yogyakarta Archaeology Agency was sent to get the
bones.

When he got them to his own lab before shipping them to Jakarta, Widianto
says, "We opened the packages and saw the mandibles (jaws) were damaged."

In a phone conversation with USA TODAY, Jacob said he would respond to the
charges by e-mail. In that e-mail, he acknowledges that molds were made in
his lab to create display casts but denies that the bones were damaged
there.

"If some breakage took place on any bone, it must be during the transport in
Yogyakarta or from Yogyakarta to Jakarta," Jacob says. "Both mandibles were
intact until the last minute in our lab, as proven by photographs taken on
the last days." He did not respond to a request for the photos.

In Science magazine, Jacob defended borrowing the hobbit bones as standard
practice with new fossil discoveries in Indonesia.

Paleontologist Maciej Henneberg of Australia's University of Adelaide
defends Jacob: "I never had any doubts that Professor Jacob and his
colleagues did not damage any bones. They are excellent professionals with
long experience in handling precious human remains."

However, White notes that Jacob's lab lacks experience with wet fossils such
as the hobbit, which were waterlogged when discovered and were the
consistency of mud. Even dried, the remains were seen as too fragile to ever
mold by the discovery team. Instead, they took CT scans of the bones.

Damage to the pelvis during travel raises "the question of why an evidently
very fragile specimen apparently was uncaringly transported from its
permanent repository and halfway across Java in the first place," says
paleontologist Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History.

Discovery team member Roberts scoffs at the notion that travel caused all
the damage: "Like the addition of a glued-on chin?"

In a 1998 profile, Science magazine said Jacob is Indonesia's "undisputed
king of paleoanthropology," whose collection contains a broad swath of early
human fossils from Indonesia. "Researchers around the world complain that
Jacob's iron grip on the collection has slowed progress in understanding an
important chapter of human development," the article said.

"He is a very senior scientist here, which makes it a difficult situation,"
Djubiantono says. The damage is particularly grievous, he says, because the
fossil is the "type specimen" for the new species, the standard by which all
finds will be measured for inclusion.

Even before reporting the damage, the discovery team had been dismayed by
Jacob's actions:

.. In news reports, Jacob dismissed the team's designation of Homo
floresiensis as a new species, calling it "careless and too hasty." He said
the fossils belong to a human pygmy with a brain disorder.

.. Jacob invited anthropologists skeptical of the discovery, including
Henneberg, to view the remains.

.. Jacob allowed human-origins researcher Jean-Jacques Hublin of Germany's
Max Plank Institute to take a small section of hobbit fossil to Germany for
genetic analysis. "This is completely unethical," Roberts says. "This is
freeloading on our discovery." Hublin did not respond to a request for
comment.

In 1999, anthropologist representatives of 20 countries, including Indonesia
and Germany, signed a resolution barring transfer of original hominid
fossils from their country of origin without compelling scientific reasons.

"It is clear to me that the Indonesian government should appoint a neutral
fact-finding body to fully investigate," White says.

The discovery team is excavating Liang Bua and scouting other caves. The
team has partial remains of eight hobbits, including long arms that likely
reached down to the knees. Jacob has stated he will publish his own findings
as well.

"Putting aside our own egos, damage to the type specimen that is absolutely
irretrievable is tragic for science," Roberts says. "This was something for
Indonesia's posterity that should never have been damaged."

Contributing: Lisa Nevell


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