The tiny "hobbits" that went extinct on an Indonesian island approximately 15,000 years ago are not Homo sapiens but a completely different species of human, according to a new study by a research duo from Paris-Descartes University and France's Natural History Museum. The fossils of the Homo floresiensis, which are dubbed "hobbits" due to their small size, were discovered in 2003 on the island of Flores, and since then, debate has raged over whether they are an unknown branch of early humans or simply modern humans that were deformed by disease.
Up until now, may academic studies have examined the issue, each pointing either one direction or the other. While some believe that the Flores people descended from larger H. sapiens, gradually becoming smaller over hundreds of generations as their food supply diminished, others point to H. floresiensis as modern humans who were affected by a genetic disorder, possibly due to a lack of iodine that stimulated dwarf cretinism.
The new study used high-tech tools to re-examine the layers of an H. floresiensis skull, in particular the remains of Liang Bua 1 (LB1), whose cranium is the most intact out of the nine known specimens. Using these tools, they were able to obtain high-resolution images to create maps of bone thickness variation and view the skulls in more detail than ever before.
"So far, we have been basing our conclusions on images where you don't really see very much," Antoine Balzeau, lead author of the study, said in a press release. "There is a lot of information contained in bone layers of the skull," he said, adding that "there were no characteristics from our species."
Furthermore, although they found minor maladies, there was no evidence of any sort of genetic diseases.
Although the scientists have concluded that the "hobbits" are not the same species as H. sapiens, the team was still unable to determine if they are shrunken versions of H. erectus or it they are a unique species in their own right.
The study was published in the Feb. 18 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.
