14 DAY TRIAL // The Associated Press reports that, while digging in an Indonesian cave, a team of scientists has discovered a jaw bone which is a proof that Hobbit-like species once existed.
The bone belongs to one of the nine individuals who allegedly lived 12,000 years ago. The discovery was made in a wet cave on the island of Flores, near Australia.
Homo floresiensis, as it was called, was little more than a meter tall and lived 18,000 years ago.
The researchers say they are now more convinced than ever that Homo floresiensis represents a distinct species. It seems that there are some scientists who claim that the specimens are nothing more than the bones of modern humans that suffered from microencephaly.
The latest discovery on Flores, to be published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, does not change their minds, they say, with one critic describing the latest artifacts as "pretty scrappy."
"Many syndromes can cause microencephaly and dwarfism and they all need to be considered," said Daniel E. Lieberman of the Peabody Museum at Harvard, who wrote a commentary in Nature
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