SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
"Hobbits" Had Million-Year History on Island?
from National Geographic News
Newfound stone tools suggest the evolutionary history of the "hobbits" on the Indonesian island of Flores stretches back a million years, a new study says--200,000 years longer than previously thought.
The hobbit mystery was sparked by the 2004 discovery of bones on Flores that belonged to a three-foot-tall, 55-pound female with a grapefruit-size brain. The tiny, hobbit-like creature--controversially dubbed a new human species, Homo floresiensis--persisted on the remote island until about 18,000 years ago, even as "modern" humans spread around the world, experts say.
Found in million-year-old volcanic sediments, the newly discovered tools are "simple sharp-edged flakes" like those found at nearby sites on Flores--sites dated to later time periods but also associated with hobbits and their ancestors--said study co-leader Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, via e-mail.
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