New clues to mysterious extinct & ancient ‘Hobbit' humans that roamed earth 1 million years ago uncovered by scientists
The species called "Hobbit" was first discovered in 2004 when archaeologists searching a cave on an Indonesian island found a 60,000-year-old skull no bigger than a grapefruit.
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And after some digging, archaeologists uncovered some very well-preserved fossil remains in the Liang Bua cave on Flores Island, Indonesia.
The diminutive size of this new human species, scientifically called homo floresiensis, earned it the nickname "Hobbit".
Shockingly, researchers believe the three-foot-tall hominin had survived until the end of the last Ice Age, some 18,000 years ago.
That was much later than Neanderthals lived, later than any human species other than our own.
But a new reseach has now found new stone tools that date back to at least a million years - near the place where homo floresiensis once existed.
This suggests that the "Hobbit" species may have arrived far earlier than scientists previously estimated.
The seven stone tools were found at an Early Pleistocene (Ice Age) site called Calio, located southern Sulawesi.
Researchers from Griffith University and Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) dug up small, sharp flakes which early humans would have used as knives and blades.
And through advanced dating techniques, the experts were able to confidently place the age of these tools at over 1.04 million years old.
Gerrit van den Bergh, a vertebrate paleontologist from the University of Wollongong in Australia, told National Geographic: "At least one million years ago, there were tool-producing hominins on Sulawesi."
Professor Adam Brumm, who led the study added: "This discovery adds to our understanding of the movement of extinct humans across the Wallace Line, a transitional zone beyond which unique and often quite peculiar animal species evolved in isolation."
However, mystery still remains if the tools were used by "Hobbit" or members of a yet-undiscovered Human species.
The homo floresienis were ancient humans that lived between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.
Adults stood just three-and-a-half feet tall and their brains were roughly one-third the size of our own, about the size of a chimpanzee's.
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Scientists are still debating where they came from.
One theory states the Hobbits may have arrived on the island from Java after being washed out to sea by a tsunami.
Over time, they could have shrunk on their new island home – a strange yet common phenomenon known as island dwarfism.
Their extinction happened around the time modern humans arrived, but the exact reasons are unknown.
Who were the homo floresiensis?
Homo floresiensis, nicknamed "the Hobbit", was a tiny human species discovered in 2003 on the Indonesian island of Flores.
Fossils found in the Liang Bua cave revealed they were about 1 metre tall with very small brains, much smaller than modern humans.
Despite this, they lived successfully on the island.
They existed from around 100,000 to 50,000 years ago, at the same time as modern humans arrived in the area.
They made stone tools, hunted small elephants and large rodents, and adapted to life alongside predators like Komodo dragons. Their ability to survive in such conditions was remarkable.
Scientists are still debating where they came from. Some think they evolved from larger humans like Homo erectus, becoming smaller over time due to island living.
Others believe they descended from much older ancestors.
What's clear is that they were a completely unique species.
The discovery of Homo floresiensis changed how we understand human evolution.
It showed that brain size doesn't always equal intelligence and that humans were much more varied than previously thought.
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