Scientists have discovered a new and tiny species of human that lived in Indonesia at the same time our own ancestors were colonising the world.

The new species - dubbed "the Hobbit" due to its small size - lived on Flores island until at least 12,000 years ago.

The fact that little people feature in the legends of modern Flores islanders suggests we might have to take tales of Bigfoot and the Yeti more seriously.

Details of the sensational find are described in the journal Nature.

Australian archaeologists made the discovery while digging at a site called Liang Bua, one of numerous limestone caves on Flores.

The remains of the partial skeleton were found at a depth of 5.9m. At first, the researchers thought it was the body of a child. But further investigation revealed otherwise.

Wear on the teeth and growth lines on the skull confirm it was an adult, features of the pelvis identify it as female and a leg bone confirms that it walked upright like we do.

"When we got the dates back from the skeleton and we found out how young it was, one anthropologist working with us said it must be wrong because it had so many archaic [primitive] traits," said co-discoverer Mike Morwood, associate professor of archaeology at the University of New England, Australia.

King of the swingers?

The 18,000-year-old specimen, known as Liang Bua 1 or LB1, has been assigned to a new species called Homo floresiensis. It was about one metre tall with long arms and a skull the size of a large grapefruit.

The researchers have since found remains belonging to six other individuals from the same species.

LB1 shared its island with a pony-sized dwarf elephant called Stegodon, a golden retriever-sized rat, giant tortoises and huge lizards - including Komodo dragons.

Chris Stringer, head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum said the long arms were an intriguing feature and might even suggest H. floresiensis spent much of its time in the trees.

"We don't know this. But if there were Komodo dragons about you might want to be up in the trees with your babies where it's safe. It's something for future research, but the fact they had long arms is at least suggestive," Professor Stringer told BBC News Online.

H. floresiensis probably evolved from another species called Homo erectus, whose remains have been discovered on the Indonesian island of Java.

Homo erectus, may have arrived on Flores about one million years ago, evolving its tiny physique in the isolation provided by the island.

What is surprising about this is that Homo erectus must have made it to Flores by boat. Yet building craft for travel on open water is traditionally thought to have been beyond the intellectual abilities of this member of the human family.

Legendary creatures

Even more intriguing is the fact that Flores' inhabitants have incredibly detailed legends about the existence of little people on the island they call Ebu Gogo.

The islanders describe Ebu Gogo as being about one metre tall, hairy and prone to "murmuring" to each other in some form of language. They were also able to repeat what islanders said to them in a parrot-like fashion.

"There have always been myths about small people - Ireland has its Leprechauns and Australia has the Yowies. I suppose there's some feeling that this is an oral history going back to the survival of these small people into recent times," said co-discoverer Peter Brown, an associate professor of archaeology at New England.

If so, the legends might relate real stories of interaction between modern humans and H. floresiensis on Flores. The last evidence of this human at Liang Bua dates to 12,000 years ago, when a volcanic eruption snuffed out much of Flores' unique wildlife.

Yet there are hints H. floresiensis could have lived on until much later on other parts of the island. The myths say Ebu Gogo were alive when Dutch explorers arrived a few hundred years ago and the very last legend featuring the mythical creatures dates to 100 years ago.

But Henry Gee, senior editor at Nature magazine, goes further. He speculates that species like H.floresiensis might still exist, somewhere in the unexplored tropical forest of Indonesia.

"The uniqueness of the human lineage is a substantial foundation of our religion, our ethics, even our science. This find challenges that substantially," said Dr Gee.

Textbook rewrite

Professor Stringer said the find "rewrites our knowledge of human evolution." He added: "To have [this species] present 12,000 years ago is frankly astonishing."

Homo floresiensis might have evolved its small size in response to the scarcity of resources on the island.

"When creatures get marooned on islands they evolve in new and unpredictable courses. Some species grow very big and some species grow very small," Dr Gee explained.

ooooh i just read about this on teletext...

its a shame they died out 12,000 years ago

Well as "Chris com28" said, some scientists think their still alive existing in the forests of Indonesia. I personally don't believe that was true because that would of exposed themselves to the world of the future of 2004. Also, yeah it could be possible. Like pigmy's I would suggest no? Why wouldn't it be possible? And I don't blame these so called hobbits for getting adapted to living in the trees. I would be scared as hell living on an island with existing large komodo dragons! I can perfectly believe that - long arms - adapted to living in the trees, existing large animals on the island. Sounds like a perfectly normal excavation discovery. And also, why couldn't it be a "Homo Erectus" a before version of Homo Sapiens. Homo Erectus had a curved back, but still walked upright with a short height. But I do have a problem believing that they still exist to this day. With technology we have these days, most likely, anything in those Inodesian forests could of been found if there were any evidence that their still living today.

I believe it's possible for them to still exist. I don't find technology to be highly evolved, to people in general it seems so because it's all we know. We just recently discovered pluto in the 1900's (which our ancient ancestors already knew about long before) among other things that we are just now discovering. Also, If yeti and and bigfoot exist why haven't we found them yet?-- I think it's possible. Interesting story

wonder what it was like for the last ones

must've been an interesting life

In an astonishing discovery that could rewrite the history of human evolution, scientists say they have found the skeleton of a new human species, a dwarf, marooned for eons in a tropical Lost World while modern man rapidly colonized the rest of the planet.

The finding on a remote Indonesian island has stunned anthropologists like no other in recent memory. It is a fundamentally new creature that bears more of a resemblance to fictional, barefooted hobbits than modern humans.

Yet biologically speaking, it may have been closely related to us and perhaps even shared its caves with our ancestors.

The 3-foot-tall adult female skeleton found in a cave is believed 18,000 years old. It smashes the long-cherished scientific belief that our species, Homo sapiens, systematically crowded out other upright-walking human cousins beginning 160,000 years ago and that we've had Earth to ourselves for tens of thousands of years.

Instead, it suggests recent evolution was more complex than previously thought.

And it demonstrates that Africa, the acknowledged cradle of humanity, does not hold all the answers to persistent questions of how -- and where -- we came to be.

``This finding really does rewrite our knowledge of human evolution,'' said Chris Stringer, who directs human origins studies at the Natural History Museum in London. ``And to have them present less than 20,000 years ago is frankly astonishing.''

Scientists called the dwarf skeleton ``the most extreme'' figure to be included in the extended human family. Certainly, she is the shortest.

She is the best example of a trove of fragmented bones that account for as many as seven of these primitive individuals that lived on the equatorial island of Flores, located east of Java and northwest of Australia. The mostly intact female skeleton was found in September 2003.

Scientists have named the extinct species Homo floresiensis, or Flores Man, and details appear in today's issue of the journal Nature.

The specimens' ages range from 95,000 to 12,000 years old, meaning they lived until the threshold of recorded human history and perhaps crossed paths with the ancestors of today's islanders.

Flores Man was hardly formidable. His grapefruit-sized brain was two-thirds smaller than ours, and closer to the brains of today's chimpanzees and transitional prehuman species in Africa than vanished 2 million years ago.

Yet Flores Man made stone tools, lit fires and organized group hunts for meat. Bones of fish, birds and rodents found near the skeleton were charred, suggesting they were cooked.

All this suggests Flores Man lived communally and communicated effectively, perhaps even verbally.

``It is arguably the most significant discovery concerning our own genus in my lifetime,'' said anthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University, who reviewed the research independently.

Discoveries simply ``don't get any better than that,'' proclaimed Robert Foley and Marta Mirazon Lahr of Cambridge University in a written analysis.

To others, the species' baffling combination of slight dimensions and coarse features bears almost no meaningful comparison either to modern humans or to our larger, archaic cousins.

They suggest that Flores Man doesn't belong in the genus Homo at all, even if it was a recent contemporary. But they are unsure where to classify it.

``I don't think anybody can pigeonhole this into the very simple-minded theories of what is human,'' anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh. ``There is no biological reason to call it Homo. We have to rethink what it is.''

For now, most researchers have been limited to examining digital photographs of the specimens. The female partial skeleton and other fragments are stored in a laboratory in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Researchers from Australia and Indonesia found the partial skeleton 13 months ago in a shallow limestone cave known as Liang Bua. The cave, which extends into a hillside for about 130 feet, has been the subject of scientific analysis since 1964. Fenced off and patrolled by guards, it is surrounded by coffee farms.

Read rest of story here: FULL LINK

There was only place for one selfish humanity --> Homo Sapiens (Sapiens)

I wonder, if a living speciment will be found in Indonesia.
How will Homo Sapiens will treat Homo Floresiensis...

After all, they are not humans (not Homo Sapiens).

I second Discordia. I mean how long ago was it when we first discovered Gorillas?

I'm sure the people back then thought it was all folklore and myths as well...

Is that where Middle earth is because they haven't found hobds in europe of the Amerericas or even darkest Peru....strange that...

There are short people and TALLER people living with us today. And with evolution, we evolved from these apes and gorillas...so the Flores guys just evolved differently for their island...MysterMan is right, I mean it's completely feasible that happened with their longer arms. There are people living in the high altitudes of the Nepalese moutains and their eyes are so squinted, you can't even tell they're open. Why? Because they had to adapt to their environment. The Flores dudes didn't have to be tall. And the one found in the cave, I mean, we still have "dwarves" living with us today, most barely making it above 3'....why is it some discovery that they existed 18,000 years ago too? The gene that causes people to be dwarf size had to come from somewhere.

Thats the article I have hanging on my wall right now. "Human Hobbit, Stunning discovery of prehistoric cave dwarf" by Joseph B. Verrengia. Had the picture: "Brain, Meet Skull" with the hobbit who looks just like a human but has little ape characteristics.

http://www.thesunlink.com/bsun/nw_internat...3286906,00.html

I agreed...
This species might be live somewhere in the jungle...
South East Asia have too many jungle to uncover...!!

there's a thread like this in cryptozoology

Theres a theory that says that they were human, or did have the same proportions as us, but when they travelled to the small island they were found on, they adapted and changed to the environment. They also said they might have gotten there by riding on the backs of elephants because they tend to be good swimmers.

This discovery jazzes Moe greatly. In hawaii there was a legend that little people once inhabited that island as well. they were called the menehune. We like when legend becomes a scientific possibility. This is when science and spirituality come together and share cheese logs.

One European (and well respected) scientist has said that the skeleton is nothing more than a disfigured and mentally retarded woman.

who...??

I don't know...it was on the news over here a few days ago...

He's a very well respected archeologist and bone examiner of over 30 years experience. He examined the bones thoroughly and came to the conclusion that the age estimate is correct though it's nothing more than an ordinary homo-sapien with a rare deformation giving her a tiny brain, small body and was most likely very retarded.

Oh, and nice pictures

Have the newspaper hung up on my wall - wish they gave out more information by the day on their latest discoveries and information on this new species discovered...
Found this very interesting site all about the Human Hobbit - not the newspaper:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20041025/tinyhuman.html

Heres a link to Jays Journal about the topic: Link! Its interesting...

The bones of seven individuals and an almost complete skeleton of an adult female where discovered ,so unless they are all metally handicapped it's a pretty good indicator that there was an entire race. Also evidence found in the same sedimentary layers as the bones , suggest they had the ability to make tools and fire. That takes some thought .

Here is a copy of an article from Indonesia on the "Hobbits":


Indonesian scientists refute Flores Man finding
2004-11-06 00:32:24 Xinhua English


JAKARTA, Nov. 6(Xinhuanet)-- A team of Indonesian scientists has refuted a claim that the skeleton of a dwarf-sized human species recently found on the remote island of Flores would rewrite the evolutionary history of the mankind, reports said Saturday.


Speaking about the skeleton discovered in a limestone cave at Liang Bua, a paleoanthropology professor from Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University, Teuku Jacob, said the skeleton was not that of a member of a novel race dubbed Homo floresiensis by Australian scientists Mike Morwood and Peter Brown, who announced their discovery last week.


"The skeleton is not a new species as claimed by these scientists, but simply a fossil of a modern human, Homo sapiens, that lived about 1,300 to 1,800 years ago," Jacob was quoted by The Jakarta Post newspaper as saying.


He said the skeleton was of a member of the Australomelanesid race, which had dwelled across almost all of the Indonesian islands.


"So, if they(the Australian scientists) say the skeleton was the ancestor of the Indonesian people, forget it," he added.


He acknowledged, however, the skeleton was indeed dwarf-sized with a minuscule brain, and therefore, was different from common Homo sapiens.


Jacob said the relatively smaller size of the skeleton was a result of the inciter evolution, which took place as an impact of the environment-- tiny islands-- in which the species had been living in.


"The brain volume of this human being is estimated at about 380cc, while the brain volume of a normal Homo sapiens is 1,300 cc for females and 1,400 cc for males. With such a small brain size, it's actually even smaller than that of a chimpanzee," said Jacob.


The Australian scientists said in the journal Nature on Wednesday of last week that the species is thought to be a descendent of Homo erectus, which spread out from Africa to Asia about 2 million years ago.


It became isolated on Flores and evolved into its dwarf form to conform with local conditions, such as food shortages, they said.


The Australians made the discovery together with their Indonesian colleagues.


Contradicting the Australian claim, Jacob said the skeleton wasthat of a male who died when he was 30.


"This finding is based on the shape of the eye socket and the curves of the hip bone, which are more like a male's," Jacob explained.


He also criticized the announcement of the discovery without the consent of the Indonesian archeologists who participated in the work, saying it was unethical.


A similar note was also expressed by Soejono, the head of the National Archeology Institute, who said the Australians should have involved them when making the announcement considering that none of the Australian scientists were present at the time of the discovery.


Soejono said Indonesian archeologists started the research workback in 1976 but were forced to halt it in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis.


"We continued the research later on by involving a team from Australia before we discovered the skeleton in September. We didn't immediately announce it because we needed to study the fossil," said Soejono.


The two Indonesian archeologists said that the skeleton could not be considered a fossil, but a sub-fossil.


"We would call it a fossil if everything has hardened. But we were able to find soft tissue so that we could carry out a DNA test. We couldn't do that if it was already a fossil," said Soejono.

Here is where I got it: http://english.sina.com/news/technology/7375794.shtml
I have checked out Jacob's credentials, they are immaculate!

If we very carefully study the solar stone, or the Aztec Calendar, we will find there an extraordinary wisdom. In relation to this calendar, the Nahuas (Aztec Masters) say that:

The children of the first sun were devoured by tigers.

The children of the second sun were cleared away by strong hurricanes and converted themselves into apes or monkeys.

The children of the third sun perished by fire and great earthquakes and they transformed into birds.

The say that the children of the fourth sun were swallowed by the waters and they converted themselves into fish.

They do not say anything about how the children of the fifth sun perished because we are the children of the fifth sun. Yet, when they speak of the future, they indicate how we will most certainly perish.

These wise men who wrote of the destinies of the races of the past in this calendar, also prophesied about the future. They say that the children of the fifth sun will perish by fire and earthquakes. They also affirmed that in the epoch of the fifth sun the gods will be dead.

The meaning of this prophecy, "the gods will be dead" is that the worship to the solar gods will be abandoned. This prophecy has already been fulfilled.

The Nahuas (Aztecs Masters) made an emphasis when they said in their Aztec calender that in the epoch of the sixth sun, the Gods will resurrect. They also said that in the epoch of the seventh sun, everything will be divine.

Let us talk about the children of the first sun. These people of the first sun (first Root Race) were people who lived on a primordial land, more than 300 million years ago, on the protoplasmatic continent. The Nahuas stated that they were devoured by tigers, in other words, that they were children who were devoured by wisdom.

The children of the first sun were the Protoplasmatic Root Race. This referral to Protoplasmatic people seems to clash with Hegel's theory which refers to that bit of salt named Protoplasm. These Protoplasmatic people had gelatinous bodies, they were ductile, elastic, very flexible. They could assume a gigantic stature or reduce their bodies down to a mathematical point. They were also androgynous, and were reproducing themselves as the cells of our organism, that is to say by cellular division.

Today this phenomena of reproduction remains in our blood, thus, this is how one cell is reproduced in two, and the two into four, etc. This is called Mitosis (reproduction of the cells).

The Protoplasmatic Root Race was devoured by tigers, in other words, they were devoured by wisdom.

When the Nahuas mentioned the children of the second sun, they said that they were cleared away by strong hurricanes: this is an esoteric statement. They now refer to the Hyperboreans.

The Hyperborean Root Race had androgynous bodies as well, but much less gelatinous and more gaseous. The Nahuas stated that they were transformed into apes, in other words, that some of them came to degenerate themselves and therefore they perished.

It is also stated in this calender from the culture of our ancestors of America, the Nahuas, about the children of the third sun, the Lemurian Root Race.

The Lemurians were gigantic hermaphrodites. We can see their representation in those sculptures which are in Tula, Mexico. The Lemurians were oviferous.

The children of the second sun reproduced themselves by budding, but the children of the third sun reproduced themselves in an oviferous way. It is clear that the hermaphrodite body of Lemurians ovulated, and that the ovum that escaped from their ovaries was already fecundated.

The Lemurians were Male-Female (hermaphrodites), as the bible states: "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and Female created he them, and blessed them and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created." (Genesis 5:1-2)

Therefore, it is stated, that in a determinate period, the egg within the womb of the hermaphrodite Lemurian body was open and a child was born from it. This child was then nourished from the breasts of the Father-Mother.

When we state that the Lemurians were hermaphrodites, it invites us to explore the physical body. Certainly, the nipples on the male body are nothing else but atrophied mammary glands, and the clitoris on the female body is an atrophied masculine phallus which has withdrawn with nervous ligaments. So in the human organism we have the evidence that in the past, the human body was hermaphrodite.

Still in these times we find people with both sexual organs. Therefore, this is proof or testimony for the persons who deny this fact, so that they cannot obstinately deny or ignore these truths which are unknown to so many people.

The Lemurians were divided into opposite sexes over the years through the process of evolution. Then, children were being born with one sexual organ more developed than the other. Finally the day arrived in which the children appeared unisexual (one sexual organ).

Therefore, when the sexes were divided, sexual cooperation was needed in order to create. During the epoch of Lemuria, the sexual act was still considered to be very sacred. The sexual act was only performed as a sacrament within the great temples of mysteries. This was a different age in which humanity had not degenerated.

The Nahuas stated that the Lemurians devolved and converted themselves into birds. I can tell you as a testimony of this, that in Bolivia, South America, people discovered a small race of what we would call Lilliputians.

These Lilliputians were only 10 or 20 centimetres in stature, tiny men and women who inhabited a small town. This town resembled a toy town. These tiny beings disappeared one night by placing themselves into the fourth dimension and transporting themselves to another, safer place. They had to escape as they were afraid of becoming a public 'freak' show.

Many people were trying to get into the place in order to see these tiny beings before their escape, but now only the tiny town remains very well guarded by the Natives of that place. Thus, this is how we understand that it is very true that the children of the third sun were converted into birds.

The Nahuas stated that the children of the fourth sun would perish by the waters, and that they would transform themselves into fish. Thus, this is true of public knowledge, according to history, that Atlantis was devoured by the ocean.

As for us, the children of the fifth sun, they said that we will perish by fire and earthquakes.

loge, just once I wish you would say something that actually made good sense! Dude you seriously need a life!

What doesnt make sense about it? Humanity is in a constant cycle and if we screw this chance up to prove ourselves worthy we are done for and some new guys will take over untill we get it right. (Our cycle is near end by the way!)

The Intelligent Principles of Nature have worked very hard in order to create self-cognizant beings. The Intelligent Principles of Nature have had to make difficult experiments in the laboratory of Nature. Diverse forms of animals have come out of those test tubes of this great laboratory, some of those forms were created with the purpose of elaborating material for the creation of true human beings; other forms are refuse of semi-human beings and others are true human failures. All animals from this kingdom of Nature characterize some eliminated aspect of true human beings. Present “humanoids” are true caricatures of the human being.

However it is good to know that the struggle of the Intelligent Principles of Nature in order to create true human beings has not finished yet. Still, in order to create true human beings, Nature has to discharge many elements which will be present in the zoological gardens of the future.

Smile when yew say thet Podner - seriously tho, I have to agree with Tupac, if I wanted pseudobuddhist baloney, I would go to a Buddhist temple.

According with Anthropogenesis:

Human beings are those which are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of of the will God.

And God said, Let us make humans in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created humans in his own image, in the image of God created he them; male and female created he them.

Evolution does not create humans but Intellectual Humanoids!


If these Intellectual Humanoids learn the power of Kriya-Shakti, they provably might become Human Beings.

The secrets of Kriya-Shakti are hidden within every religious scrypture, wheter from the east or west, whether from the south or from the north.