News Anthropology

Hobbit foot, hippo skulls deepen ancestral mystery

Fossil studies add some new twists to debate about a tiny, humanlike species

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Fossil hobbits followed a simple motto: Walk, don’t run. That’s the implication of a new analysis of foot bones from an 18,000-year-old partial skeleton assigned to the controversial species Homo floresiensis, or hobbits.

WALKING SMALL Bones from the left foot of a partial hobbit skeleton (top) indicate that this individual could walk upright but still possessed many primitive foot features.