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Homo floresiensis ('the hobbit')
c. 100,000–50,000 years ago (found 2003)· Organism or group· Human ancestors & us
Strong evidenceGood evidence; dates or details still being refined.
A tiny human species, about one meter tall, found on the Indonesian island of Flores and nicknamed 'the hobbit'.
See it on the Life map →What happened
In 2003, an Australian–Indonesian team at Liang Bua cave found a partial skeleton of an adult female (LB1) about 1.06 meters tall with a brain of about 420 cc, close to a chimpanzee's. Remains of several more individuals followed. First dated to as young as 18,000 years, the bones were re-dated in 2016 to about 100,000–60,000 years, and their youngest tools to about 50,000. They shared the island with dwarf elephant relatives, giant rats and Komodo dragons.
Why it matters
It showed that human evolution could produce dwarfs on islands, and that another human species survived until about the time modern humans arrived.
The evidence (fossils, genes, rocks)
Bones of several individuals and stone tools from Liang Bua, older fossils from Mata Menge, dated by uranium-series, luminescence and argon methods; first described in Nature, 2004.
Still debated
Whether it descends from Homo erectus or an earlier hominin, and why it vanished. Early claims that LB1 was a modern human with a disorder are now widely rejected.
Connections (2)
▸Homo floresiensis ('the hobbit') may descend from Homo erectusDebated
The connection
Homo erectus reached nearby Java by roughly 1.5 million years ago. One idea is that some erectus crossed to Flores and shrank over hundreds of thousands of years, as island mammals often do when food is limited. Tiny 700,000-year-old jaw, teeth and arm-bone fossils from Mata Menge support this.
When and how
Flores, Indonesia; Mata Menge fossils about 700,000 years old, published in 2016 and 2024; stone tools on Flores about 1 million years old.
How sure are we?
Mata Menge teeth and a tiny arm bone resemble Javan erectus in shape. Small size alone does not prove descent.
Debates and open questions
Its wrists, feet and very small brain look more primitive than erectus, so some argue it descends from an earlier, habilis-like hominin that left Africa.
▸Homo floresiensis ('the hobbit') overlapped in time with Homo sapiensStrong evidence
The connection
The hobbit's bones date to about 100,000–60,000 years ago, and its youngest tools to about 50,000 years ago. Modern humans passed through the Indonesian islands around then on the way to Australia, so the two species may have met; the hobbits then vanish from the record.
When and how
Liang Bua cave, Flores; hobbit traces to about 50,000 years ago, modern humans in the region from about 50,000 years ago or earlier.
How sure are we?
The dates overlap, but no direct evidence of contact has been found, so any interaction is inferred.
Debates and open questions
Whether modern humans or volcanic eruptions caused their end is debated, as is whether Flores legends of small 'Ebu Gogo' people reflect folk memory or pure myth.