Who Were the Hobbits?
Two million years ago, one branch in the human family tree led to the emergence of Homo sapiens. On the other branch, a diminutive human relative evolved. These tiny beings lived on a secluded tropical island as recently as 12,000 years ago, and for tens of thousands of years might even have shared their island with modern humans, ducking in the shadows and hiding in caves—like legendary hobbits. That is the scenario upheld by Kieran McNulty, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota. His research helps prove that the three-foot-tall inhabitants of Flores Island in Indonesia were a different species in human evolution and had ancestors that far predate the arrival of modern humans 195,000 years ago. His study (with co-author Karen Baab, a researcher at Stony Brook University in New York) appeared in the online edition of the Journal of Human Evolution late last year. McNulty’s work helps solve a mystery that began with the 2003 discovery of several partial skel
