Hobbits

A hobbit foot next to the tibia. The hobbits did not have a foot arch like modern humans


The small hunters (l) were dubbed Hobbits after the creatures in JRR Tolkein's novel Lord of the Rings (r)


The small hunters (l) were dubbed Hobbits after the creatures in JRR Tolkein's novel Lord of the Rings (r)


The skull of a hobbit (l) found on Flores is a third of the size of a human skull (r)


The hobbits' remains were discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia

Hobbits did exist as a separate race and not just in Middle Earth, a scientific study of their feet has concluded.

Debate has raged in the scientific community about where they came from after the remains of Homo floresiensis were first discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003.

The tool-making hunters were 3ft tall, weighed 65lb and may have roamed the island as recently as 8,000 years ago.
Hobbit feet

A hobbit foot next to the tibia. The hobbits did not have a foot arch like modern humans

Previously it was thought the miniature humans belonged to the same group as modern pygmies. Experts believed their small brains were due to a disease where the skull failed to grow normally.

But others claimed they were a new species who became smaller as a result of island dwarfism.

They argue that the hobbits are descended from a prehistoric species of human - perhaps Homo erectus, who went on to die out.

Both Homo erectus and modern man (Homo sapiens) are descended from Homo ergaster who lived 1.5million years ago. Two new studies now claim to show that the Hobbits are a species distinct from either Homo erectus or Homo sapiens.

The research in the British journal Nature have supported this idea that the hunters, dubbed hobbits due to their similarity to the characters in JRR Tolkien's novel, were an entirely separate human species.
hobbit may have been new species
Lord of the Rings

The small hunters (l) were dubbed Hobbits after the creatures in JRR Tolkein's novel Lord of the Rings (r)

One team led by William Jungers of Stony Brook University in New York tackled the problem by analysing the foot of a hobbit.

In some ways it is very human as the big toe is aligned with the others and the joints make it possible to extend the toes as the body's full weight falls on the foot.

However, it is also startlingly primitive. The foot is far longer than its modern human equivalent and is equipped with a very small big toe as well as long and curved lateral toes closer to a chimpanzee's.

It also had a navicular bone, which is a tarsal bone in the foot, that was more akin to that found in great apes. This means that these hominins (a group that includes humans and two types of chimpanzees) lacked an arch and were not efficient long-term runners.

'Arches are the hallmark of a modern human foot,' said William Harcourt-Smith who co-authored the Nature feet study.

'This is another strong piece of the evidence that the 'hobbit' was not like us.'
hobbit and human skulls

The skull of a hobbit (l) found on Flores is a third of the size of a human skull (r)

Recent archaeological evidence from Kenya shows that the modern foot evolved more than 1.5 million years ago, most likely in Homo ergaster.

So unless the Flores hobbits became more primitive over time - considered extremely unlikely - they must have branched off the human line at an earlier date.

'Our study provides additional and unequivocal confirmation that we're dealing with a new species,' Dr Jungers said.

Some scientists have argued a new species with dwarfism could not account for the Hobbit's chimp-sized brain - a third the size of the modern human brain.

But a companion study also published in Nature by Eleanor Weston and Adrian Lister of London's Natural History Museum seems to have resolved this issue.
hobbit location

The hobbits' remains were discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia

They compared the skulls of extinct hippos that lived on and off the island of Madagascar to see what effects isolation could have on evolution.

They found that insular dwarfing - driven by the need to adapt to an island environment - had shrunk the brains of pygmy hippos on the island far more than had previously been thought possible.

'Looking at pygmy hippos in Madagascar, which possess exceptionally small brains for their size, suggests that the same could be true for H. floresiensis - the Flores hobbits - and that (it could be) the result of being isolated on the island,' Dr Weston said."

Source