Remember those fossils of tiny people nicknamed Hobbits, that were discovered in Indonesia? Turns out they weren’t tiny after all?the so-called dwarfs of these Micronesian islands actually were modern, normal-sized hunters and gatherers.
It’s all the fault of an archeologist who misinterpreted fragments of leg bones, teeth and brow ridges found on the site. Anthropologist Greg C. Nelson says, Oregon “Our research from whole bones and whole skeletons indicates that the earliest individuals in Palau were of normal stature but gracile. In other words, they were thin [and not Hobbit-like at all].”
The original conclusion, from other researchers?based on skeletal fragments collected from two caves exposed to tidal activity?was that small-bodied humans may have lived in isolation and suffered from insular dwarfism on the islands 1,000 to 3,000 years ago.
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