Indonesian “Hobbits” Weren’t Human, Say Scientists

The skull of Homo floresiensis (left), is displayed next to a normal human's skull.

Scientists Analyze Homo Floresiensis Skull

An analysis of an 18,000-year-old Homo floresiensis skull has proven that they were not the same species as modern humans according to a study led by Dr. Karen Baab, Ph.D., a researcher in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at New York's Stony Brook University, and Kieran McNulty, professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

Some believe that the “hobbit” skeleton belonged to humans that had dwarfism or the disease microcephaly, which causes the brain to be smaller than normal. But Baab and McNulty say their analysis of the skull’s shape, which they then compared to samples from other extinct hominins and modern humans and apes, proves the microcephaly theory wrong.

“The overall shape of the LB1 skull, particularly the part that surrounds the brain (neurocranium) looks similar to fossils more than 1.5 million years older from Africa and Eurasia, rather than modern humans, even though Homo floresiensis is documented from 17,000 to 95,000 years ago,” said Baab in a Stony Brook University news release.

In other studies of Homo floresiensis remains, scientists have found primitive features in areas such as the upper and lower limbs that were unlike modern humans.