In 2003 a team of Australian and Indonesian researchers, led by Mike Morwood and Thomas Sutikna, made a startling discovery in the Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia. The partial skeleton fossils were so small, at first, the researchers thought it was a child. The molars, however, were those of an adult female specimen. Subsequently, the fossilized bones and teeth of 12 individuals have been found, and the newly discovered species of Homo was named Homo floresiensis after the island on which it lived. The average height of specimens: 3’6”. Average weight: 66 lbs. Nickname: the Hobbits. Time on earth: 100,000 to 60,000 years ago, however, stone tools they made have been dated back to 190,000 years ago. Moreover, on another part of the island, similar fossil remains believed to have been the hobbits’ ancestors have been dated to 700,000 years ago. Those specimens averaged 3’ in height.
“The brain cavity of 426 cubic centimetres is small, even for such a short being (our cavities average between 1300 and 1500 cubic centimetres). The forehead slopes back, the skull is low, yet analyses of brain imprints show the species possessed an expanded frontal cortex. This implies they were capable of sophisticated actions such as planning and learning from mistakes, and was able to pass information from generation to generation.
“The jaws lack a chin, and instead have some ape-like bone structures internally, below the lower incisors. Wrist bones are also ape-like. H. floresiensis had relatively short legs, which resulted in its arms extending much lower than ours, and its shoulders would have been shrugged and hunched forward. H. floresiensis would have walked upright but with a somewhat odd gait because its feet were quite long compared to its legs. It had to lift those feet up higher than we do just to get ground clearance.” (Argue, 2017)
Since the discovery was announced, there has been much research and debate as to whether these tiny human-like specimens evolved from Homo erectus or the older, smaller ancestor Homo habilis. Recent research favors Homo erectus, our ancestor who traveled out of Africa and whose fossil remains were first discovered in Java, Indonesia.
Several hypotheses have been advanced to explain its hobbit-like stature. Microcephaly, the condition where a baby’s head is small because the brain hasn’t developed properly, is an explanation that garnered much publicity.
“The incidence of hereditary microcephaly, however, is low in modern populations (for instance one in 30,000 in Japan and one in 2,000,000 in Scotland). Examples have been found in only five archaeological excavations so far. Laron Syndrome – sometimes dubbed “cretinism” – and Down Syndrome have also subsequently been evoked as explanations for the strange diminutive morphology of H. floresiensis. But any explanation must account for more than just the tiny skull: there is also the archaic head shape, facial features and shoulder configuration, the ape-like structure of the lower jaw and wrist, and the overly-long arms and feet.
“And even if one was so lucky as to find an individual with one of these rare syndromes in excavated skeletal material, the rest of the bones in the population should be those of normal modern humans. But all the bones of H. floresiensis represent statures of one metre or less.” (Argue, 2017)
The scientific consensus now favors a different explanation for their reduced stature.
“Crucially, they bear a striking resemblance to the taller species Homo erectus, leading scientists to conclude that the larger hominids spread to Indonesia then got trapped on Flores and became a victim of ‘insular dwarfism’ – where creatures grow smaller because of a lack of food and resources.
“Dwarfed populations of elephants, tigers, mammoths and even dinosaurs have all been found in the fossil record, or recorded by explorers and naturalists.” (Knapton 2016)
The “hobbits” made and used stone tools and probably knew how to make fire. They hunted pygmy elephants and huge rodents and fought off giant Komodo dragons. How they separated from their parent species and got stranded on the island of Flores, however, remains a mystery.
When J.R.R. Tolkien published “The Hobbit” in 1937, he didn’t know that his fantasy would foreshadow the real hobbits who lived on the island of Flores, Indonesia. As the renowned biologist, J.B.S. Haldane famously said, “The universe is not only stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than we can imagine.”