Fossils of 'Hobbit' ancestors found on Indonesian island

Fossils unearthed on theIndonesian island of Flores may resolve one of the mostintriguing mysteries in anthropology: the ancestry of theextraordinary diminutive human species dubbed the "Hobbit."

Scientists on Wednesday described bone fragments and teethabout 700,000 years old retrieved from an ancient river bed thatappear to belong to the extinct Hobbit species, previously knownonly from fossils and stone tools from a Flores cave rangingfrom 190,000 to 50,000 years old.

The species, called Homo floresiensis, stood about 106 centimetres (3.5 feet) tall, possessing a small, chimpanzee-sized brain.

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The new fossils "strongly suggest" the Hobbit evolved fromlarge-bodied, large-brained members of the extinct human speciesHomo erectus living in Asia, said palaeoanthropologist YousukeKaifu of the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo.

Similarities to Homo erectus

Homo erectus, which first appeared in Africa roughly 1.9million years ago, is known from numerous fossils 1.5 million to150,000 years old from Java, an Indonesian island west ofFlores, and the new Flores fossils bear similarities to those,said paleontologist Gerrit van den Bergh of Australia'sUniversity of Wollongong.

The fossils included four adult and two baby teeth, a pieceof jawbone and a cranial fragment from two children and eitherone or two adults who may have died in a volcanic eruption. Theywere dug up during excavations in grasslands nearly 70 kilometres (45 miles)east of the cave where the first Hobbit bones werediscovered in 2003.

The jawbone's size suggested the individual was even a bitsmaller than the later cave remains.

Previously discovered stone tools suggest the Hobbit'sbig-bodied ancestors reached Flores a million years ago,indicating the species shrank during 300,000 years of evolution.

"It now appears that the Flores 'Hobbit' is indeed a dwarfedHomo erectus," said archaeologist Adam Brumm of Australia'sGriffith University.

The research was published in the journal Nature.

Size reduction that occurs over many generations of largermammal species, such as elephants, that somehow reach a newisland habitat is called the "island rule," driven by limited food resources on islands.

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Brumm said the 700,000-year-old fossils rule out claims bysome scientists that the Hobbit was a member of our species witha medical condition causing small size. Homo sapiens firstappeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago.

Characteristics of the fossils also do not support the ideathe Hobbit evolved from even more ancient members of the humanfamily tree like Homo habilis or Australopithecus, theresearchers said.