Menu Close

Articles on Homo floresiensis

Displaying all articles

A Homo erectus skull from Java, Indonesia. This pioneering species stands at the root of a fascinating evolutionary tree. Scimex

Evolutionary study suggests prehistoric human fossils ‘hiding in plain sight’ in Southeast Asia

The ancestors of modern-day people living on Southeast Asian islands likely interbred with a prehistoric species called Denisovans - raising the possibility of fresh and intriguing fossil discoveries.
20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space. Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo

Archaeological discoveries are happening faster than ever before, helping refine the human story

20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space.
An Indonesian island was home to H. Floresiensis – but how did the dwarfed human species evolve? areza taqwim/Shutterstock.com

Fast evolution explains the tiny stature of extinct ‘Hobbit’ from Flores Island

New research models how the Homo floresiensis species could have evolved its small size remarkably quickly while living on an isolated island.
Rampasasa people are from Waemulu village, Flores – near Liang Bua where ‘the Hobbit’ fossils were discovered. Dean Falk, Florida State University

We know why short-statured people of Flores became small – but for the extinct ‘Hobbit’ it’s not so clear

Modern day people of short stature became physically small due to the effects of living on a small island or forested environment. But we’re not sure why “the Hobbit” of Flores was so small.
Image (left) of the Mata Menge lower jaw fragment (SOA-MM4) superimposed on the Homo floresiensis skull (LB1) from Liang Bua, and compared with a modern human skull from the Jomon Period of Japan. Y. Kaifu

A 700,000-year-old fossil find shows the Hobbits’ ancestors were even smaller

Fossil finds on another dig on an Indonesian Island show the Hobbits may have been around for much longer than first thought.
A 700,000 year-old stone tool excavated by an Indonesian field worker at Mata Menge, Flores. Yinika Perston

How the Hobbits kept their tools as they shrank into island life

New fossil finds show the first large-bodied inhabitants of an isolated Indonesian island evolved to Hobbit-size, but they always remembered how to make and use stone tools.

Top contributors

More