In 2003 a team of Australian and Indonesian archaeologists digging in Liang Bua, a large limestone cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, found the skeleton of an adult who had stood only about 1.06 m tall, with a brain the size of a chimpanzee’s. It was a new species of human relative, named Homo floresiensis in 2004 and immediately nicknamed the hobbit. It shared its island with dwarf relatives of elephants, large rats and Komodo dragons.
Small from the start
The skeleton, known as LB1, belonged to an adult about 1.06 m tall who weighed about 25 to 30 kg. Its brain measured about 400 cm³. It had a small, receding forehead, a flat face, separate brow ridges over each eye rather than one continuous bar, and no chin. Its arms were relatively long, its shoulders hunched forward, and its feet unusually flat and long for its size, with long, thin toes. Bones and teeth of up to a dozen individuals have been found since.
When it was announced, some researchers argued that LB1 was simply a modern human with a disease that stunts growth. Studies published in 2016 rejected the main candidates, microcephaly and Down syndrome. Since then the case for a separate species has only grown. At Mata Menge, elsewhere on Flores, researchers found a jaw fragment and teeth about 700 000 years old, and in 2024 an adult arm bone of the same age that is even smaller than LB1’s, from an individual about a metre tall. The hobbit’s line was small from very early on.
Most researchers now think it descended from early Homo erectus that reached Flores and shrank over hundreds of thousands of years, a process known from many island animals. Others argue that it came from an earlier, already small human relative from Africa. A 2026 study of LB1’s pelvis found it mostly within the range of modern people and could not settle the question.
Older than first thought
The first estimates put LB1 at about 18 000 years old, which would have meant the hobbit survived alongside modern humans for tens of thousands of years. In 2016 a fresh study of the cave’s layers corrected that. The skeletons are about 100 000 to 60 000 years old, and the stone tools linked to them about 190 000 to 50 000 years. Hearths in the cave from 41 000 years ago were probably made by modern humans who came later.
Life on Flores
More than 10 000 stone artefacts have been found at Liang Bua: flakes, points, perforators and blades, used to work wood and fibre. The hobbits ate Stegodon, a dwarf relative of elephants, and large rats. A 2026 study of the bones found almost twice as many Komodo dragon tooth marks as human cut marks, concentrated on the meatiest bones, and concluded that the hobbits mostly scavenged what the dragons left behind. It also found that dark stains once taken for burning were manganese, and that their layers hold no burnt Stegodon or rodent bones.
The end
Why the hobbits disappeared is not settled. A 2025 study of a stalagmite from a nearby cave and the teeth of Stegodon found that Flores dried out from about 76 000 years ago, with severe summer droughts between 61 000 and 55 000 years ago, and that Stegodon numbers crashed after 61 000 years ago. A key food was disappearing just as the hobbit’s bones vanish from the record. The arrival of modern humans, and a volcanic eruption, have also been suggested. No DNA has ever been recovered from Homo floresiensis, and no trace of it has been found in the genes of people living on Flores today.
