Hobbits died out earlier than thought
Tiny hominids disappeared from their island about same time Homo sapiens appeared in the region
By Bruce Bower
Hobbits disappeared from their island home nearly 40,000 years earlier than previously thought, new evidence suggests.
This revised timeline doesn’t erase uncertainty about the evolutionary origins of these controversial Indonesian hominids. Nor will the new evidence resolve a dispute about whether hobbits represent a new species, Homo floresiensis, or were small-bodied Homo sapiens.
Hobbits vanished about 50,000 years ago at Liang Bua Cave on Flores, an island situated between Borneo and Australia’s northern coast, say archaeologist Thomas Sutikna of the University of Wollongong, Australia, and his colleagues.