Flores Island's Modern Pygmies And The "Hobbit" Homo Floresiensis

Indonesia's Flores Island, once home to diminutive Homo floresiensis (skull cast shown above), also has modern pygmy populations. Researchers sequenced DNA from some of the individuals to determine if they might be descended from the archaic "hobbit." (Credit: Australian Museum) From the home of the "hobbit" (and I'm not talking about The Shire): Researchers have sequenced DNA from modern pygmy populations on the Indonesian island of Flores to determine whether they are descended from Homo floresiensis, a famously small-statured archaic human living there as recently as 50,000 years ago. When diminutive H. floresiensis was first described in 2004, Peter Jackson's cinematic take on the Lord of the Rings was near peak popularity, so of course the new addition to our family tree was immediately nicknamed the "hobbit," after the sub-four-foot heroes of JRR Tolkien's fantasy world. Some skeptics suggested the individual's roughly 3'6" height was an anomaly, but the recent ...