These findings tease out details of how these small hominins evolved.
Anthropologists found smaller, more ancient bones than before
The remains ofH.
They quickly became known as the Hobbits due to their stature.
The humerus fragment (left) compared to another H. floresiensis humerus.Photo: Yousuke Kaifu
floresiensisindividuals some 700,000 years ago.
Every fossil was smaller than the remains uncovered at Liang Bua, which are about 640,000 years younger.
Being able to track a single evolving hominin lineage over that time scale holds great promise for future research.
The Mata Menge excavation in 2014. Photo: Gerrit van den Bergh
In 2019, anthropologistsdiscovered another diminutive fossil human specieson the island of Luzon in the Philippines.
The researchers determined that the speciesHomo luzonensisgrew to about the same height as the Flores humans.
For example,H.
floresiensisshared Flores withStegodon, an extinct species of very small elephant.
So how did the Flores Hobbits come to be?
The team also cited stone tools found in the Soa Basin as an indication thatH.
erectusbecame isolated on Flores about 1 million years ago, and shrank in size over the next 300,000 years.
But that is far from a sure thing.
For now, a 700,000-year-old arm bone seems to suggest a new record for the smallest ancient human.
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