According to a study published in the journal Nature Communications, the 700,000-year-old fossilized remains, discovered at a site called Mata Menge in the So’a Basin on Indonesia’s Flores island, belonged to Homo floresiensis.
- The region is some 75 kilometres east of a huge cave called Liang Bua, where all Homo floresiensis fossils have been found. The So’a Basin in central Flores, Indonesia, is a key region for elucidating the origin and evolution of H. floresiensis.
- The bone fragments of the upper arm bone, called the humerus, comprise the smallest limb bone known for any member of the human evolutionary lineage. The fossil has unlocked the mystery of the origin of H. floresiensis, nicknamed “The Hobbit.”
- Homo floresiensis is an extinct species of exceedingly small humans that once inhabited Flores island between 2 million and 250,000 years ago and had similar body sizes to modern humans.
- The new study also reveals that Homo floresiensis may have been shorter than scientists thought.
- Until recently, it was thought that H. floresiensis stood 3 feet, 2 inches (1 meter) tall, on average. However, this new research shows that the species, which is an offshoot of Homo erectus, was 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) shorter, on average.
