Prof Investigates ‘Hobbit’ Findings

In 1954, J.R.R. Tolkien introduced the fictional “hobbit” character to the world. Today, Professor of Anthropology Daniel E. Lieberman ’86 and an international team of more than 25 researchers are investigating the existence of a new hobbit-like species that is distinct from present-day humans.

Lieberman said that the remains of at least nine individuals with the features of a tiny human have been excavated on the remote Indonesian island of Flores.

The first of these hobbit fossils was uncovered in October 2004. More recently, an anthropology professor at the University of New England in Australia, Mike Morwood, discovered a fossilized jawbone that has spurred the latest investigation into the new species’ existence. Morwood collaborated with another professor at the University of New England, Peter Brown, to analyze the fossil findings, a process which they just finished.

Lieberman wrote about the discovery and its latest developments in yesterday’s edition of the journal Nature.

Further testing will be done to prove that the collection of bones is from a distinct human species, according to Lieberman.

These specimens have dispelled several prior conclusions about the ancestors of homo sapiens. Analysis of the Floresian residents revealed that a non-homo sapiens species of human lived at the same time as homo sapiens. This is contrary to the hypothesis that less evolved species of hominids, such as homo erectus and Neanderthals, went extinct more than 50,000 years ago.

“More unusual is the proposal that this hobbit species evolved from homo erectus through dwarfing,” said Lieberman. This phenomenon, he said, “occurs on islands when species are released from the pressures of predation but become constrained by limiting resources and small population sizes.” As a result, large animals become smaller and small animals become larger over time.

Corroborating evidence of island dwarfing on Flores includes remains of giant rats and pygmy elephants.

There are two alternative hypotheses to the fossils being a new species, according to Lieberman. One is that the specimens are of a “pygmy human and not a new species,” he said. The other is that the remains are of “a human who suffered a form of microcephaly, a pathological condition characterized by an abnormally small brain and head, and which may also cause dwarfism.”

The chair of Yale’s Anthropology Department, Andrew Hill, expressed professional approval of the hypothesis of a new species.

“I’m sure it has to be a species distinct from us,” Hill said in an interview on Wednesday. “There is speculation that it could be a diseased human, but this is nothing like that.”

The existence of Homo floresiensis—the technical name for the hobbit species—has called into question previous assumptions about the relationship between absolute brain size and intelligence. Discoveries of stone tools and signs of controlled fires are evidence of comparable intelligence between this species and homo sapiens.