A tantalizing piece of evidence has been added to the puzzle over so-called "hobbit" hominids found in a cave in a remote Indonesian island, whose discovery has ignited one of the fiercest rows in anthropology.
Explorers of the human odyssey have been squabbling bitterly since the fossilized skeletons of tiny hominids, dubbed after the diminutive hobbits in J.R.R. Tolkien's tale, were found on the island of Flores in 2003.
Measuring just a metre (3.25 feet) tall and with a skull the size of a grapefruit, the diminutive folk lived around 20,000 and 80,000 years ago and appear to have been skillful toolmakers, hunters and butchers.
They have been honored with the monicker Homo floresiensis by their discoverers, who contend the cave-dwellers were a separate species of human that descended from Homo erectus, which is also presumed to be the ancestor of modern man.
That claim has huge implications and has been widely contested.
If true, it would mean that H. sapiens, who has been around for around 150,000-200,000 years, would have shared the planet with rival humans far more recently than thought.
And it implies that H. sapiens and H. floresiensis lived side by side on Flores for a while -- and, who knows, may even have interbred, which could have left "hobbit" genes in our DNA heritage...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070418/sc_afp/scienceanthropology_070418104350;_ylt=Aslp2DWTp99yAREpt6VlAwhFeQoB
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