Ancient 'hobbits' were even smaller than previously thought, scientists say

Table of Contents

Researchers studying the ancient human relatives have made a surprising discovery: A species resembling "hobbits" was actually even smaller than initially thought.

In 2003, fossils were discovered that dated back 50,000 to 100,000 years and were found on the Indonesian island of Flores, which is located east of Bali. Flores is roughly the same size as Puerto Rico.

Now, even fossils from 700,000 years ago indicate that an early human species was roughly 2.5 inches shorter than their relatives that later evolved. Both of these earlier humans are thought to have descended from a taller, more ancient human species known as Homo erectus.

Begin your day with a head start. Receive all the news you need in your inbox every morning.

People who lived long ago and are now extinct, related to humans, were a bit shorter than the average 4-year-old child. Later hopefuls were believed to be about 3 feet and 6 inches tall. Much older fossils show their ancestors were possibly as short as just over 3 feet.

reported on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

.

The younger hobbits were not typically smaller than the older ones.

This week's paper is based on fragments of an upper arm bone and teeth that were found in the same areas of Mata Menge, which a team led by Kaifu, who is both Japanese and Australian, has been studying very closely.

It took a long time to have data that was able to convince us.

'Strange evolution' created hobbits

Kaifu and others believe this particular species of human evolved from Homo erectus, another extinct human species that lived about 2 million years ago. Homo erectus means "upright human" because the species walked upright.

"We are aware that Homo erectus was present on the island of Java about 1.1 million years ago. In some way, they managed to cross the ocean to reach these islands, became isolated, and then underwent a rather unusual evolutionary process," Kaifu stated.

Between 1.1 million and 600,000 years ago, the Homo erectus species on the island of Flores gave rise to hobbits. These beings retained their small body size and managed to survive for at least 500,000 years.

The closest island is roughly six miles away across unsafe waters, so it's unclear how they ended up there.

have been on Earth for roughly the same length of time that humans have.

One thing we're certain about: why the early human relatives shrank while living on the island of Flores.

It's widely known that animals living on islands without predators can rapidly evolve into much smaller forms, a phenomenon known as phyletic dwarfism. This has been observed in species such as deer, cattle, elephants, and hippos. Additionally, this process can occur rapidly.

On Amsterdam Island in the southern Indian Ocean, the birds reduced their original body size by about three-quarters in less than a century's time.

According to Kaifu, the hobbits probably grew smaller fairly quickly because they didn't have to worry too much about being hunted by anything on the island.

There's no advantage to being large if you don't have predators," he said. "You need to eat a lot to maintain a larger body size, which takes more time to grow and also affects your ability to reproduce. Therefore, being smaller is more efficient.

He was almost six feet tall," Kaifu said. "It was a big deal for them – they must have been very intelligent.

.

This species inhabited the island approximately 50,000 to 76,000 years ago.

Scientists now believe that ancient "hobbits" were smaller than previously thought.