"Up until [the hobbit remains] were discovered, we thought we were the only ones for at least 30,000 years, because 30,000 years ago Neanderthals went extinct," said lead author Matthew Tocheri, an anthropologist at the National Museum of Natural History.
Since the discovery, scientists have debated whether the specimen represents a new hominin species called Homo floresiensis, possibly a dwarfed offshoot of Homo erectus, a human ancestor that lived as far back as 1.8 million years ago.
The hobbit's brain was about one-third the size of a modern adult human's brain.
"Are they a distinct species or are they pathological modern humans?" asks study leader Tocheri. "I think it's pretty clear that this is a smoking gun, that they are not pathological modern humans. Modern human wrists, normal or abnormal, don't look like an otherwise normal chimpanzee wrist."
Since the discovery, scientists have debated whether the specimen represents a new hominin species called Homo floresiensis, possibly a dwarfed offshoot of Homo erectus, a human ancestor that lived as far back as 1.8 million years ago.
The hobbit's brain was about one-third the size of a modern adult human's brain.
"Are they a distinct species or are they pathological modern humans?" asks study leader Tocheri. "I think it's pretty clear that this is a smoking gun, that they are not pathological modern humans. Modern human wrists, normal or abnormal, don't look like an otherwise normal chimpanzee wrist."
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