Homo Floresiensis - Discovery

Discovery

The specimens were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 by a joint Australian-Indonesian team of archaeologists looking for evidence of the original human migration of Homo sapiens from Asia to Australia. They were not expecting to find a new species, and were surprised at the recovery of a nearly complete skeleton of a hominin they dubbed LB1 because it was unearthed inside the Liang Bua Cave. Subsequent excavations recovered seven additional skeletons, dating from 38,000 to 13,000 years ago. An arm bone provisionally assigned to H. floresiensis is about 74,000 years old. The specimens are not fossilized and have been described as having "the consistency of wet blotting paper"; once exposed, the bones had to be left to dry before they could be dug up.

Sophisticated stone implements of a size considered appropriate to the 3 feet tall human are also widely present in the cave. The implements are at horizons from 95,000 to 13,000 years ago and are associated with (found in the same stratigraphic layer as) an elephant of the extinct genus Stegodon (which was widespread throughout Asia during the Quaternary), presumably the prey of LB1. They also shared the island with giant rats, Komodo dragons, and even larger species of lizards. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago.

Homo floresiensis was unveiled on 28 October 2004, and was swiftly nicknamed the "Hobbit", after the fictional race popularized in J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit, and a proposed scientific name for the species was Homo hobbitus. It was initially placed in its own genus, Sundanthropus floresianus ("Sunda human from Flores"), but reviewers of the article felt that the cranium, despite its size, belonged in the genus Homo.