That is what this article in the Guardian claims! In addition,
Mike Morwood says he has now uncovered stone tools on nearby
Sulawesi. These could be almost two million years old, he
believes, which suggests the whole region was populated by very
ancient humans for a startlingly long part of human prehistory.
“This is going to put the cat among the pigeons,” Morwood says.
Interesting if true. Artifacts on Flores go back 1.1 MYA: In
research that provides further support for this idea, scientists
have recently dated some stone tools on Flores as being around
1.1 million years old, far older than had been previously
supposed. The article is mainly about the implications of these
early dates for out of Africa scenarios. Towards the end of the
article theories about the demise of Homo floresiensis are
considered: As to the fate of H. floresiensis, that is unclear.
The species disappears abruptly from the archaeological record
17,000 years ago. But why? They had apparently survived quite
happily on the island for m