Homo Floriensis, also nicknamed "hobbit" for it's small stature, is one of the most recently discovered early human species. The fossils date between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago. What makes this hominid really special it's his size, infact the female individual stood approximately 106 cm of height, had tiny brains, large teeth and relatively large feet due to their short legs. Despite their lack in evolution they used tools and may have used fire.
Through the uses of tools, against their small size, they hunted small elephants (Stegodon) and large rodents and coped with predatros as Komodo Dragons. The significant of this particular skeleton is the date of decade where it comes from: if they would have found a fossil like this in Africa dated to 2/1 million years ago it wouldn't really be a big discovery. The surprise here is that it was found in an isolated island in Indonesia and dated only 80,000 years ago, in a time that overlaps with the Homo sapiens.
The first H. floriensis's fossil (LB-1) was discovered in Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia. The diminuitive size may have resulted from island dwarfism, a process of evolution caused by being limited to a small enviroment with restricted food resources and lack of predators. At the beginning there was a scientific debate over LB-1 and doubts, infact some scientists thought that it may represent a modern human with a disease or growth disorder. Now most of the scientist recognize H. Floresciensis as a valid taxon and human spiecies distinct from Homo sapiens.
A lot of things remain unanswered and may be answered in the future. For now we just now that the "hobbit" of the hominid-kind really existed and lived in our same Earth, different period.
Thanks for reading it and for becoming an improved anthropologenius day by day, with us.
Sources:
Video: Dr. Matt Tocheri
