Indonesia's hobbit-sized humans find humble home

Indonesia's hobbit-sized humans find humble home

Tomi Soetjipto, Reuters

Newly unearthed remains of hobbit-sized humans, perhaps one of
the most significant finds involving human evolution in recent
years, are being stored in an office drawer in the Indonesian
capital.

A lack of funds and strict laws on the removal of national
treasures from the country mean the bones of several Homo
floresiensis, who stood about one metre (three feet) tall and
walked the earth about 13,000 years ago, are being kept at a
modest government office in Jakarta, archaeologists said.

The small hominids, dubbed "Flores man", were first unearthed
in a limestone cave on the remote island of Flores in 2003 by
Australian and Indonesian scientists and the findings published
to great acclaim this week in the journal Nature.

"They are now stored in a steel cabinet in the office," Thomas
Sutikna, the archaeologist who first discovered the prized skull
of a "Flores man", told Reuters on Friday, referring to the
National Archaeology office in Jakarta.

"In 2004 we also found the lower part of a jaw, parts of legs
and arms and some teeth."

The findings have stunned anthropologists, as the remains
represent a new creature more closely resembling the fictional
hobbits of the Lord of the Rings trilogy than modern humans.

Small tools and the remains of a pygmy elephant, or Stegodon,
hunted by the hominids for food have also been unearthed.

"Flores man" is thought to be a descendant of Homo erectus,
who had a large brain, was full-sized and spread out from Africa
to Asia about two million years ago.

Scientists suspect "Flores man" lived at the same time as
modern humans and became extinct after a massive volcanic
eruption on the island around 12,000 years ago.

However, local folk tales suggest the hominids may have still
been living on Flores until the Dutch arrived in the 1500s.

The hominid family, which includes humans and pre-humans,
diverged from chimpanzees about seven million years ago.

The findings in Flores have been described as an
"extraordinarily important" piece in the complex puzzle of human
evolution.

Australian scientists from the University of New England were
primarily involved in determining the age of the bones as well as
reconstructing the skeletal elements, Sutikna said.

Australian scientists have said they hope to find more new
species of small humans on other islands surrounding Flores,
1,500 kilometers (940 miles) east of Jakarta.

Soejono, another Indonesian archaeologist, said a lack of
funds had hindered early excavations in the Liang Bua limestone
cave which began in the 1970s.

Soejono, who launched the first excavation three decades ago,
said his government-sponsored team had found scattered evidence
of prehistoric life in the cave after being tipped off by a Dutch
missionary living in the island.

"We found that the cave once housed systematic life ... We
conducted our own research until the money ran out," he told
Reuters.

The project was halted in 1989 and restarted with funding from
the University of New England in 2001, Soejono said.