Scientists have discovered evidence that early humans were living on the Indonesian island of Flores at least one million years ago.
An archaeological dig has discovered stone tools that have pushed back the age that hominins were living on the island.
Now scientists are speculating that this mystery human may have evolved into the now famous hobbit of Flores.
Dr Adam Brumm, a research fellow at the Centre for Archaeological Science at the University of Wollongong, was part of a team that went to Indonesia to find out just how long humans have been living on Australia's doorstep.
Their work is published today in the science journal Nature.
"We've found a site in the Soa Basin of Flores, which is in central Flores, which back dates the known occupation of early humans on the island by at least 120,000 years," he said.
Dr Brumm and his colleagues dug up some primitive stone tools.
"The stone tools are in a deposit that are sealed by volcanic layers like ash, that are dated by the argon dating technique to one million years ago," he said.
"We can't go down any deeper so we now have absolutely no idea how long the hominins may have been on the island for. It could be two million years for all we know."
Dr Brumm says the finding gives some credence to a theory that it was this mystery hominin that gave rise to the tiny human species that lived on Flores 18,000 homo floresiensis - better known as the hobbit.
<<Read More>>
An archaeological dig has discovered stone tools that have pushed back the age that hominins were living on the island.
Now scientists are speculating that this mystery human may have evolved into the now famous hobbit of Flores.
Dr Adam Brumm, a research fellow at the Centre for Archaeological Science at the University of Wollongong, was part of a team that went to Indonesia to find out just how long humans have been living on Australia's doorstep.
Their work is published today in the science journal Nature.
"We've found a site in the Soa Basin of Flores, which is in central Flores, which back dates the known occupation of early humans on the island by at least 120,000 years," he said.
Dr Brumm and his colleagues dug up some primitive stone tools.
"The stone tools are in a deposit that are sealed by volcanic layers like ash, that are dated by the argon dating technique to one million years ago," he said.
"We can't go down any deeper so we now have absolutely no idea how long the hominins may have been on the island for. It could be two million years for all we know."
Dr Brumm says the finding gives some credence to a theory that it was this mystery hominin that gave rise to the tiny human species that lived on Flores 18,000 homo floresiensis - better known as the hobbit.
<<Read More>>
