Who were the Hobbits?

In 2003 paleontologists found a cave called Liang Bua, on the island of Flores in Indonesia. They discovered a population of tiny, ancestral human’s fossils. The small humans were given the name Homo Floresiensis. Using radiocarbon dating, we have found out that these early humans lived from 38,000 to 18,000 years ago. However, using the physical evidence of the fossils and bones we think that the early humans might have lived up to 12,000 years ago. Another question that scientists have been trying to answer is how intelligent they were. Usually, the bigger a species brain is the smarter the species is. The Homo Floresiensis skull was very small, and still very intelligent behavior was evident in the hobbit remains. First, scientists thought that they had microcephaly, a genetic disorder causing abnormally small heads and brains. However, this theory was also proved wrong. Homo Floresiensis was an intelligent early human despite their minute brain size. Another theory made about why they were so tiny was that they were suffering from island dwarfing. This is when an ecosystem becomes closed (like an island). Then there aren’t as many resources, and animals sometimes don’t survive, at least not the large predators and the greedy. Still, this is only one theory. The most complete evidence we have found from the hobbits is a skull, parts of its legs, pelvis, hands, feet, and other fragments. We have found out that their face appears primitive, they have convex brows and cheeks, no chin, wrists arranged like apes, shoulder blades shaped slightly forward and long, flat feet that were good for short walks but not for long distance running. The skeleton that they found was dubbed “Flo”. It is female and not male because of its female looking pelvis and leg bone. Also, many tools were found at the dig site, for digging, butchering, stone points and what could have been wooden spears. A question that scientists asked was “Did they make these advanced tools?” This topic has aroused much discussion lead to argument, and we still don’t know. One scientist also states that one hobbit isn’t enough to make assumptions for a whole species. It’s as if we took one really, really tall or short person and said that that was how large the average modern humans were. Now, we have found one more jaw bone from supposedly the same early human type, and the calculations fit exactly- but can we rely only on this?