Newly discovered bones have strengthened claims that small human-like “hobbits” roamed Indonesia as recently as 12,000 years ago. The bones come from Liang Bu, the site on the island of Flores where the first find was made. The skull of a small female hominin, labelled LB1, was found in 2003 and announced a year ago.The new finds include the right arm bones of LB1, plus a jawbone and several limb bones from others of the same species. “We now have evidence for at least nine individuals,” says Michael Morwood of the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia, who is head of the excavation team.Other unearthed items reveal aspects of the hobbits’ lifestyle, including sophisticated cutting tools and remains of stegodons, dwarf forerunners of modern elephants. The stegodon bones have cut marks on them, suggesting they had been butchered. Other animal bones and stones at the site were charred, suggesting the hobbits knew how to light fires.“This type of complex behaviour probably required the ability to talk,” says Morwood. "But there is no evidence for burial of the dead, art, ornaments or other types of symbolic behaviour.” Some sceptics have claimed that LB1 was simply a modern human with a condition called microencephaly – an abnormally small brain. But the new finds all came from individuals with the same size bodies as LB1, only about a metre tall.

This supports the idea that Homo floresiensis is indeed a species in its own right. Morwood and his colleagues proposed previously that the hobbits are dwarf forms of Homo erectus, a forerunner of modern humans, that evolved after being isolated on the island.Sceptics such as Bob Martin, provost of the Field Museum in Chicago, US, hotly dispute this, claiming that the brain is only half the size it should be for a dwarfed version of Homo erectus.And in the light of the new finds, Morwood's team is itself moving away from the dwarfing theory. The hobbits have disproportionately long arms relative to their legs, and so cannot be scaled-down versions either of modern humans or Homo erectus, who have had the same body proportions for 1.6 million years.

View: Full Article | Source: New Scientist

Heheh what a coincidence!
My science teacher was talking about
them today and
I read about them in Times Mag. Hehe

I think I heard about this, didn't they find this in a cave?

There was a program on TV the other week saying how they were not a seperate species and just diseased humans, I never got to watch all the program but I think that was the conclusion by the end of it. This latest discovery is great

Well this will indeed help to keep the debate going!

"Morwood's team is itself moving away from the dwarfing theory. The hobbits have disproportionately long arms relative to their legs, and so cannot be scaled-down versions either of modern humans or Homo erectus, who have had the same body proportions for 1.6 million years."

I read that some people are suggesting they could have been descended from homo habilis. That's the last hominid we know of that had long arms and short legs before homo erectus came along with its body very similar to ours. If any species of homo habilis could make sophisticated stone tools and light fires I'd be amazed. The tools associated with homo habilis are primitive. Still, these descendants would have had a very long time to develop. Maybe they evolved great complexity in their brain tissues that overcame the very small brains and made them smart enough for complex tools and fire.

Could they have just been midgets? oo;

Their brains are much smaller for their body size than any modern human, except for microcephalics. If they are modern humans, they changed greatly since they were isolated, and more than just getting very small.