Before the Hobbits There Were Smaller Hobbits
In a landmark discovery on the Indonesian island of Flores, scientists have found bones from tiny hominins that pre-dated the famous hobbit by 600,000 years.
On September 2nd, 2003, a team of researchers led by Mike Morwood unearthed an incredible skull on the Indonesian island of Flores. It was very small, like that of a child. But its permanent teeth and other features revealed that it belonged to an adult—a 30-year-old female who stood just 3.5 feet tall, weighed just 55 pounds, and had a chimp-sized brain. The team called her LB1 after Liang Bua cave where she was found, and they agreed that she belonged to a new species: Homo floresiensis.
The rest of the world would know her and her kin by the nickname Morwood gave them: the hobbits.
The team have since recovered the partial skeletons of nine hobbits, and their latest estimates suggest
