ORIGINS OF HOMO FLORESIENSIS (HOBBITS): , THEORIES, HOW THEY ENDED UP IN FLORES

700,000-YEAR-OLD FOSSILS: LIKELY ANCESTOR OF 'HOBBIT'

One view of what Homo floresiensis looked like

Strong evidence suggests that a relatively large human ancestor lived on Flores about 700,000 years ago and then rapidly evolved into the much smaller Homo floresiensis, better known as hobbits, according to two studies published in Nature in June 2016. A small collection of bones and teeth from an adult and two children supports the idea that H. floresiensis descended from a larger hominin species that likely reached Flores around one million years ago. Once isolated, these tool-using humans began to shrink over generations, eventually becoming only about half their original height and weight. [Source: Marlowe Hood, AFP, June 9, 2016 \^/]

This dramatic reduction in size fits a well-known evolutionary process called island dwarfism, observed in many animals that shrink in response to limited resources. Flores itself was home to dwarf Stegodons, tiny elephant-like creatures that may have been hunted by the hobbits. According to researchers, this represents the first solid evidence that humans, too, underwent dwarfing after becoming stranded on an island. “The hobbit was real,” said Adam Brumm of Griffith University, lead author of one of the studies. “It was an ancient human species separate from ours, and it no longer exists.”

The most startling result was that the 700,000-year-old individuals were already as small as those living on Flores more than 600,000 years later. “I was stunned,” said co-author Yousuke Kaifu of the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, noting that such ancient fossils were expected to resemble larger H. erectus. Instead, Brumm added, the findings suggest that hobbits evolved their tiny size very early—possibly soon after arriving on the island.

Websites and Resources on Hominins and Human Origins: Smithsonian Human Origins Program humanorigins.si.edu ; Institute of Human Origins iho.asu.edu ; Becoming Human University of Arizona site becominghuman.org ; Hall of Human Origins American Museum of Natural History amnh.org/exhibitions ; The Bradshaw Foundation bradshawfoundation.com ; Britannica Human Evolution britannica.com ; Human Evolution handprint.com ; University of California Museum of Anthropology ucmp.berkeley.edu; John Hawks' Anthropology Weblog johnhawks.net/ ; New Scientist: Human Evolution newscientist.com/article-topic/human-evolution

Archaic Homo Floresiensis Fossils

Homo floresiensis

The ancestors of Homo floresiensis are now referred to as archaic Homo floresiensis. Their fossils, uncovered in 2014 in central Flores roughly 100 kilometers from the original Liang Bua site, shed light on key questions about hobbit origins and the timeline of their size reduction. Brumm outlined two main scenarios: 1) A dwarfed Homo erectus from Java, though this explanation has largely fallen out of favor; or 2) Descent from an earlier, more primitive African hominin, which the evidence now more strongly supports. What the new finds clearly rule out, however, is the notion that H. floresiensis was simply a diseased or malformed modern human. “This discovery puts that idea to rest,” said Gert van der Bergh of the University of Wollongong.

The fossils come from the Mata Menge site in the So’a Basin, which was a savannah-like environment at the time. Colin Barras of New Scientist noted that stone tools found alongside the bones closely resemble those excavated at Liang Bua. This continuity hints that hobbits maintained similar behaviors for hundreds of thousands of years, though differences remain. For example, Liang Bua hobbits butchered animals with their tools, but no butchery marks have yet been found on bones from Mata Menge. “Maybe the So’a hominins relied mainly on plant foods and used stone tools to make digging sticks for harvesting underground tubers,” Brumm suggested. “It’s still something of a puzzle.” [Source: Colin Barras, New Scientist, June 8, 2016]

A study of fossils, dated to about 700,000 years ago, indicate that these hominins averaged 2.4 inches (6 cm) shorter than earlier estimates, making them roughly 3 feet tall. Microscopic analysis confirmed the bones came from adults, meaning the species’ extreme small size was not due to juvenile remains. The findings show that H. floresiensis, descended from Homo erectus, evolved its miniature body within the first 300,000 years of arriving on Flores and maintained that size for more than 600,000 years. [Source: Jennifer Nalewicki, Live Science, August 7, 2024]

Tools Hint Another Hominin Lived in Indonesia with Homo Erectus and the Hobbits

Stone tools have been found on Flores, at different sites than those associated with Homo floresiensis (the Hobbits), and these date back at least 1 million years. It is possible they were made by the hobbit’s ancestors, or maybe a different species of hominin that also crossed the Wallace line. In addition to this, stone tools have been found scattered on the gravelly shore of the Walanae river near Talepu, Sulawesi that other hominin might have lived in Indonesia the same time as the hobbits and Java Man (Homo erectus).

Around 300 stone tools have been uncovered at Talepu on the island of Sulawesi in Wallacea. Dating to at least 118,000 years ago—and possibly as far back as 194,000 years—the tools include choppers and sharp flakes unmistakably made by hominins. They were found alongside fragmentary fossils of water buffalo and pigs. However, the identity of the toolmakers remains unknown: the tools are so simple that almost any human species could have produced them, yet their age makes it unlikely they were crafted by Homo sapiens. [Source: Colin Barras, New Scientist, 13 January 2016, Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature16448 ^]

Gerrit van den Bergh of the University of Wollongong and his team, who discovered the tools, propose three main possibilities. One is that the artifacts were made by Homo floresiensis, the hobbit, the only early hominin known to have crossed the Wallace Line. But Flores lies to the south of Sulawesi, and the region’s strong currents flow mainly north to south. Crossing in the opposite direction would have been extremely difficult without boats or rafts—technology the hobbits are not believed to have possessed.

Another possibility is Homo erectus, or Java Man, which lived on nearby Java until roughly 500,000 years ago. A third candidate is the elusive Denisovans, who interbred with modern humans. Denisovan DNA today is most common among populations living southeast of the Wallace Line, suggesting that the encounters between Denisovans and our species occurred only after humans had crossed it.

Compairison of skulls of homo species

Van den Bergh notes that more clues may come from farther north, following the direction of regional currents. The ancestors of the Talepu toolmakers may have arrived from Borneo or the Philippines. Archaeological research in Borneo is scant, leaving its fossil record nearly unknown.

The Philippines, however, is beginning to reveal surprising finds. In 2007, a 67,000-year-old human foot bone was unearthed on Luzon, initially thought to belong to an early Homo sapiens east of the Wallace Line. Unpublished reports from 2014 hint at additional fossils from Luzon that may represent a more primitive species. According to archaeologist Roy Larick, the early human story in the islands southeast of the Wallace Line is highly complex—but ongoing discoveries should soon shed more light. “Together,” he says, “the upcoming papers will likely show that tool-using early hominins occupied several Wallacean islands.”

Wallace Line, Hobbits and Their Ancestors

Homo floresiensis crossed the Wallace Line — a deep-water barrier in the Indonesian archipelago separating Asian fauna from the distinct, isolated species of Australia and nearby islands (Wallacea). Homo floresiernsis either had to an extremely good swimmer or a boat builder or a descendant of a good swimmer or boat builder to cross the strait between Flores and Komodo, the nearest large island, and the straits between Komodo, Sumbawa, Lombok and Bali, which were never connected by land bridges during the ice ages. The most likely explanation is that “ floresiernsis” built boats, a surprisingly achievement for a creature with a brain smaller than a chimpanzee. One implication of this is that maybe a large brain isn’t as important as it has been made out to be.

Colin Barras wrote in New Scientist: “The strip of ocean that separates Borneo from Sulawesi, and Bali from Lombok, is just 35 kilometres wide in places. But for the mammals of the northern hemisphere it has historically marked a virtually impenetrable barrier called the Wallace line. This line marks a deep ocean channel that remained water-filled even during past ice ages, when sea levels saw channels between other islands in the region dry out. So mammals coming from the north were able to reach the islands to the north and west of the line. But the islands to the south and east – known as Wallacea – remained out of reach. Our species, Homo sapiens, is one of the few that managed to cross. We rafted across about 50,000 years ago. The diminutive hobbit, Homo floresiensis, also made it across. It was living on the island of Flores at least 38,000 years ago. [Source: Colin Barras, New Scientist, June 8, 2016]

The Wallace Line, an invisible biological barrier described by and named after the British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace. Running along the water between the Indonesia islands of Bali and Lombok and between Borneo and Sulawesi, it separates the species found in Australia, New Guinea and the eastern islands of Indonesia from those found in western Indonesia, the Philippines and the Southeast Asia. Studies of geology, ice ages and rising and falling sea levels conducted after Wallace's death — that among other things showed that Indonesia, the Philippines and the Southeast Asia were all connected by land bridges when sea levels dropped during ice ages — proved that his theories were largely correct.

Theories on Hobbit Origins

One theory of hobbit evolution

Researchers increasingly suspect that Homo floresiensis may descend from an early, primitive member of the genus Homo rather than from H. erectus. A new cladistic analysis led by Debbie Argue compares the hobbits’ anatomy with other hominins and apes and suggests two possible origins: either after H. rudolfensis but before H. habilis, or after H. habilis but still well before H. erectus. Crucially, the study found no evidence linking H. floresiensis closely to H. erectus, undermining the idea that the hobbits were simply dwarfed H. erectus. [Source: Kate Wong, Scientific American, November 2009 -]

This earlier placement in the human family tree could explain their extremely small brain, although LB1’s cranial capacity remains significantly below that of any known early Homo species. Some researchers argue island dwarfism could still account for such a reduction. Studies of Madagascan dwarf hippos show that drastic brain shrinkage can occur during insular dwarfing, potentially allowing an H. erectus-sized ancestor to evolve the proportions seen in LB1. While debate continues, some specialists—including Mike Morwood—now think the hobbits’ ancestors were already unusually small early Homo individuals when they reached Flores, and then underwent additional, minor dwarfing on the island.

Some of these theories about the Homo floresiensis fossils suggests something even more radical than the original discovery: a very primitive member of the genus Homo may have left Africa nearly two million years ago, with its descendants surviving on Flores until only a few thousand years ago. If true, this challenges the long-held belief that H. erectus was the first human species to migrate out of Africa. It implies that early, small-bodied hominins—more similar to Australopithecus than to later humans—may have spread across Asia long before H. erectus, potentially leaving a two-million-year trail of fossils between Africa and Southeast Asia.

The idea remains controversial. Critics such as Robert Martin argue that it is difficult to explain why such a lineage left a trace only on tiny Flores, and he still questions whether H. floresiensis is truly a distinct species rather than a modern human with an unknown disorder. Supporters counter that LB1’s anatomy is perfectly consistent with an early hominin—remarkable only because it was found in Indonesia in recent times.

Many researchers see the debate as an exciting opportunity, noting how poorly understood the Asian hominin fossil record is. Several suggest that even australopithecines might have reached Asia if ancient grasslands allowed it. Ongoing excavations on Flores, Sulawesi, and potentially Borneo aim to uncover more evidence. Scientists expect that additional discoveries across Southeast Asia will clarify the hobbits’ origins—and some predict that many more fossils should emerge in the coming years.

Where Did the Hobbits Originally Come From

Two main hypotheses attempt to explain where Homo floresiensis came from.
1. Island-dwarfed Homo erectus: Some researchers propose that the hobbits descended from Homo erectus, which may have reached Flores from Java—possibly swept out to sea by a tsunami—and then shrank through island dwarfism, a well-known evolutionary pattern in isolated environments with limited resources or few predators. Many animals, and even some human populations, show similar size reduction. The main objection: while body shrinkage is plausible, critics find it harder to explain why H. erectus would also evolve a brain half its original size. [Source: Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Times, June 8, 2016; Melissa Davey, The Guardian, April 21, 2017]

creatures that lived with the Hobbits

2. Descendants of Earlier, Smaller Hominins: A competing view argues that H. floresiensis came from already small-bodied ancestors such as Australopithecus or Homo habilis. This avoids the need for extreme brain shrinkage, but raises another question: neither species is known outside Africa, so their presence in Indonesia would imply an early, undocumented dispersal out of Africa.

Evidence Supporting and Challenging an Erectus Ancestry: A 2017 jawbone from Flores shows features closer to H. erectus, strengthening the case for an erectus-derived lineage. Yet skeptics point out that the earliest Flores hominins were already hobbit-sized 700,000 years ago, leaving only a brief window for dramatic size and brain reduction. No transitional fossils showing this process have been found. Some researchers suggest that the Flores founders might have been unusual or primitive-looking members of H. erectus, explaining why their skeletons resemble those of earlier hominins.

Evidence Against an Erectus Origin: A 2017 comprehensive bone study led by Debbie Argue concluded that H. erectus and H. floresiensis have fundamentally different skeletal structures—especially in the jaw and pelvis. Statistical modelling places the hobbits in a much more primitive position on the human family tree, closer to H. habilis. The study found no support for island dwarfing of H. erectus and strongly rejected the idea that the hobbits were malformed modern humans. This research strengthens the possibility that H. floresiensis evolved from an early African hominin, either migrating out of Africa itself or descending from a shared ancestor that left Africa long before H. erectus.

Evidence for Early Arrival and Rapid Dwarfism: Two studies published in 2016 describe fossils from Flores dated to 700,000 years ago belonging to a larger-bodied hominin—likely the ancestor of H. floresiensis. This supports a scenario in which an early human species arrived on Flores roughly a million years ago and underwent rapid island dwarfism, stabilizing at the small size seen in the hobbits.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated December 2025