A study published in yesterday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences debunks an earlier claim that a skeleton found in 2004 on the Indonesian island of Flores near the Ling Bua Cave belonged to an undiscovered species of hobbits, or Home floresiensis. Instead, researches claim that LB1, the name of the skeleton, is actually a human with abnormal development.
LB1 is about one metre tall, and has a smaller brain size than most humans. The study attributes its short height to a condition called microcephaly, which leads to smaller brain and head sizes. Since no traits unique to the skeleton were found, LB1 could not be claimed to belong to a new species. For now, it seems that hobbits remain a product of Tolkien’s brilliant imagination, and not natural history.
