Why were extinct human relatives “hobbits”?

Not every day, scientists are able to find anddiscover a new kind of person. According to livescience.com, such an event occurred in 2004 in the Liang Bois cave on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Archaeologists explored the cave, in which they discovered fossilized remains lying in Liang Bois for about 18,000 years. The miniature size of the skull and other bones helped to characterize what exactly was this unique type of person - Homo floresiensis.

Despite the fact that Homo floresiensis strongly resembled the general characteristics of modern man, his growth was only about 1 meter in height

The hobbits really existed

For the first time, archaeologists have discovered Homofloresiensis along with their stone tools and the remains of other animals. The first example of the “hobbits” for them was a 30-year-old adult female, 3.5 feet (1.06 meters) tall. Despite her decent age, she managed to keep the skull and skeleton of the body almost intact, which included several bones of the limbs, hands and pelvis. Scientists have studied their discovery for 15 years in order to ultimately conclude that the heyday of Homo floresiensis on the island took place from 60,000 to 90,000 years ago.

See also: Our DNA conceals traces of unexplored species of people.

But the discoveries of scientists did not end there. In 2019, in the Philippines, anthropologists found a new human species - Homo Luzonensis. They managed to find 13 specimens of small bones and teeth that are completely different from the species features of the remains of already discovered ancient people.

Why are hobbits short?

Zoologists suggest that the main reasonThe small size of the ancient human species Homo floresiensis and Homo Luzonensis could be influenced by the island they inhabited. So, scientists noted a tendency to decrease in size when a large species settles on a small island. A vivid example is the found remains of dwarf deer the size of a dog on the island of Crete, as well as rats the size of a cow in the Caribbean and hippos weighing a donkey in Cyprus.

The lack of natural predators on the island, as well as scarce reserves of resources could be the main reasons for the decrease in the size of the body of a Florentine man

Researchers believe that the growth of the ancienthumans could be greatly affected by the frequent reproduction of offspring due to the absence of any natural threat from predators on the island. In other words, the females of the Floresian man gave birth to children of a smaller size than other species of the ancient man, although much more often.

In some studies, scientists determinedthat over millennia, evolution could change large human species to the size of a “hobbit” under the influence of many conditions. The research results showed that evolution is only 10,000 years old enough to change the large body of Homo erectus to small species, which are Homo floresiensis and Homo Luzonensis.

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This study proves that rapid evolution and natural selection are likely in many environmental settings and can be a powerful force that can even change the body structure.