Teeth Suggest Humans Killed Hobbits

Recreation of a Homo floresiensis male.

Humans were on hobbit turf at around the same time that the small people (Homo floresiensis) seemingly disappeared from Earth, according to new evidence presented this week in Madrid at the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution.

The evidence -- a pair of 46,000-year-old human teeth -- is described in a Nature report. The teeth were discovered at the former hobbit homeland, Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores in Indonesia.

Scientists exploring Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores.

Earlier research determined that members of our species were living in southeast Asia by around 50,000 years ago. Around this time in Liang Bua, H. floresiensis -- and animals including giant storks, pygmy elephants and Komodo dragons -- disappeared. Scientists began to suspect that Homo floresiensis was not a stranger to Homo sapiens.

This possibility was deemed a "smoking gun" by Bert Roberts of the University of Wollongong earlier this year, but he had not yet found the "bullet" linking the two human groups.

"The exact cause of the demise of the hominids and associated animals is not yet understood, but in my view, may be related to the appearance in the area of the most aggressive of all hominin species, Homo sapiens, modern humans," said Donald Johanson, founding director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University.

Recreation of a Homo floresiensis individual.

The 46,000-year-old human teeth, consisting of an upper premolar and a lower molar, support Johanson's view. Roberts, archaeologist Thomas Sutikna and their team found the teeth while excavating the hobbit cave.

The researchers also found freshwater mollusk shells, which are commonly associated with early Homo sapiens sites in Europe, Africa and other parts of Asia. Stone tools made from a hard rock known as chert were additionally unearthed, as was evidence for fire hearths. All are typical of early human settlements.

Read more at Discovery News