Analysis of the diminutive cranium of Homo floresiensis - a tiny
hobbit-like human that lived in Indonesia just 13,000 years ago
- confirms it as a unique species and reveals remarkably
advanced features for such a small brain. The skull and other
bones of one female and fragments from up to six other specimens
were discovered in caves on the Indonesian island of Flores in
2003 and revealed to the world in October 2004. The remarkably
petite human stood just a metre tall and had a brain about one-
third the size of modern humans. But Dean Falk, an expert on
brain evolution at Florida State University, US, who has
analysed the skull of H. floresiensis says it has some
remarkably advanced morphological features, including ones
associated with complex brain processes in living humans. "It
has an extraordinary morphology unlike anything I've seen in 30
years," she told New Scientist. This adds weight to the theory
that H. floresiensis may have possessed an intelligence and
tool-building ability traditionally assoc