EXPERTS have made an incredible discovery that suggests a hobbit-sized human species that once roamed a remote paradise island was even smaller than first thought.
Scientists first found bones on Indonesia's Flores island twenty years ago and dubbed them “hobbits” in reference to their 3'5 ft height.
An artist's impression of the ancient hobbits shows a short, hairy human[/caption]
Scientists examined a fragment of upper arm bone to date the species[/caption]
The Mata Menge site on the remote Indonesian island of Flores where fossils were dug[/caption]
However, a new study suggests that their ancestors were even shorter than the humans who came after them – standing 2.4 inches smaller at just 3'3ft.
The original hobbit fossils date back to between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago but research dates the ancestors' remains to 700,000 years.
The shorter fossils were dug up in 2016 at Mata Menge in Flores, 45 miles from the Liang Bua cave their descendants' remains were discovered.
A tiny arm bone fragment and teeth were analyzed and have now shed light on an even earlier and smaller human species.
At the time, researchers suspected the ancestors could be shorter than the hobbits after studying bones collected from the new site.
The research suggests the small hobbits on the island were 2.4 inches smaller than their ancient predecessors.
Study co-author Yousuke Kaifu from The University of Tokyo said: “We did not expect that we would find smaller individuals from such an old site.”
Dean Falk, an evolutionary anthropologist at Florida State University who was not involved with the research said: “They've convincingly shown that these were very small individuals.”
Researchers have debated how the hobbits, officially named Homo floresiensis or Flores man after the remote Indonesian island, evolved to be so small.
They're thought to be among the last early human species to go extinct.
Artists' impressions showed the early hobbit-like humans to be of a stocky build, with coarse black hair all over the body and dark skin.
Experts don't yet know whether the hobbits shrank from an earlier, taller human species called Homo erectus that lived in the area, or from an even more primitive human predecessor.
Matt Tocheri, an anthropologist from Canada's Lakehead University uninvolved in the study said: “This question remains unanswered and will continue to be a focus of research for some time to come.”
The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
The Homo floresienis were ancient humans whose adults stood just 3'5ft tall and their brains were the size of a chimp's.
Because of their miniature size, boffins affectionately termed them “hobbits” after the titular character in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
One theory states that the hobbits may have arrived on the island from Java after being washed out to sea by a tsunami.
Over time, they could have shrunk on their new island home – a strange yet common phenomenon known as island dwarfism.
A close-up of an artist's impression shows the hobbit with coarse black hair and a big nose[/caption]
The skull of the ancient hobbit was found on an Indonesian island[/caption]
Other human ancestors
MODERN humans are homo sapiens but we were not the first, by scientists' accounts.
Neanderthals are some of the best-known extinct humans.
They lived across Europe and Asia from about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago.
Their facial characteristics include a big nose, strong double-arched brow ridge and short and stocky bodies.
They were around 5ft tall and weighed approximately 10 to 13 stone.
