The hobbit's home
Inside this large limestone cave on the island of Flores, an archaeological team in 2003 uncovered the remains of a previously unknown human species, Homo floresiensis. Nicknamed "hobbits" for their small stature, these individuals stood about 1.1 meters (3 feet 7 inches) tall. The first skeleton found, a largely complete female cataloged as LB1, had a brain volume of around 400 cubic centimeters, comparable to that of a chimpanzee. The discovery was made six meters below the cave floor by a joint Indonesian-Australian research team. Initially, the small skull was mistaken for that of a child, but analysis of the permanent teeth confirmed it belonged to a fully grown adult.
The cave is immense, measuring 50 meters long, 40 meters wide, and 25 meters high. This substantial size made it a shelter for generations of hominins. Revised dating of the cave's complex layers places the skeletal remains of Homo floresiensis between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago. This species is a side branch of the human family tree and not an ancestor of modern humans. Their existence demonstrates that the story of human evolution is more complex than previously understood.