Twenty years ago on an Indonesian island, researchers found fossils of a primitive human species known as “hobbits” due to their small stature of 3 1/2 feet tall. A recent study indicates that the predecessors of hobbits were even shorter. The original hobbit fossils were dated between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago, while the new fossils were discovered at Mata Menge, 45 miles away from the initial hobbit excavation site.
Experts suspected the earlier human relatives could be smaller after examining jawbone and teeth found at the new site in 2016. Further examination of an arm bone fragment and teeth revealed that these ancestors were 2.4 inches shorter than hobbits and lived 700,000 years ago.
The study, published in Nature Communications, sheds light on the evolution of the hobbits, formally known as Homo floresiensis, on the remote Indonesian island of Flores. They are considered one of the last early human species to become extinct.
Debates among scientists continue on whether the hobbits descended from a taller human species, Homo erectus, in the region or from an even more primitive human precursor. More research and fossil discoveries are necessary to definitively place the hobbits in the timeline of human evolution, according to experts.
Matt Tocheri, an anthropologist at Lakehead University in Canada, emphasized the importance of ongoing research to answer this lingering question about the hobbits’ position in human evolution.
