06-08-2025
- Science
- National Geographic
Did ancient ‘hobbit' humans create these million-year-old tools?
Seven newly discovered stone tools, dating to between 1.04 and 1.48 million years ago, were found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The stone tools may have been created by an ancient hominin, such as Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonensis, their relatives, or members of a yet-undiscovered species. Photograph courtesy of M.W. Moore/University of New England.
In 2004, archaeologists discovered a new species of ancient human, Homo floresiensis, on the Indonesian island of Flores. Nicknamed 'the hobbit,' this three-foot-tall hominin lived between about 60,000 and 100,000 years ago. Its discovery kickstarted a broader search across Southeast Asia's islands for fossils and other traces of early human relatives.
On Luzon in the Philippines, scientists later found another small-bodied hominin, Homo luzonensis, the remains of which dated to between 50,000 and 67,000 years ago. Across the region, researchers have also uncovered artifacts that predate the fossils, including flaked stone tools from 1.02 million years ago on Flores and 700,000-year-old stone tools on Luzon, which strongly suggests that hominins have arrived far earlier than evidenced by the oldest known fossils.
Now, on the larger Indonesian island of Sulawesi, a team of researchers has unearthed stone tools dating to between 1.04 and 1.48 million years ago, pushing back the presence of ancient human relatives on the island by hundreds of thousands of years. Previously, the earliest signs of hominin activity on Sulawesi dated to about 194,000 years ago. Excavations at Calio in southern Sulawesi, Indonesia found seven flaked stone tools that were likely made by an ancient hominin. Photograph courtesy of the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia (BRIN)
'At least one million years ago, there were tool-producing hominins on Sulawesi,' says Gerrit van den Bergh, a vertebrate paleontologist from the University of Wollongong in Australia, and one of the authors of a paper about the findings that was published Wednesday in Nature.
But a mystery remains: Were these early toolmakers the 'hobbit' Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonensis, their relatives, or members of a yet-undiscovered species? Hammering for stone tools
The Sulawesi expedition was led by Budianto Hakim, an archaeologist from Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency. Limited Time: Bonus Issue Offer Subscribe now and gift up to 4 bonus issues—starting at $34/year.
The team found seven tools, all embedded in sandstone, at a site called Calio on the south of the island. Hakim found the youngest at the surface, and the oldest was found about two feet deeper down. Based on the approximate age of the surrounding rock and a giant pig jaw buried just above it, the tools are estimated to be at least a million, possibly nearly 1.5 million years old. The youngest stone tools, dating to around 1.04 million years ago, were found embedded near the surface of sandstone. Photograph by Adam Brumm/Griffith University The oldest of the stone tools dated to around 1.48 million years ago and were found two feet below the younger tools. Photograph by Adam Brumm/Griffith University
Though two feet may not sound like much of a dig, 'you have to break up the hard rock with a hammer and a chisel,' says van den Bergh, who previously explored the area in the early 1990s. Underneath, the researchers discovered an ancient riverbed in which the tools had been preserved.
'We don't know what they were doing with these sharp-edged flakes of stone, but most likely they were cutting or scraping implements of some kind,' says Adam Brumm, an archaeologist from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, and an author of the study.
Closer investigation revealed the stones were turned around to be struck with another stone at the most promising points to produce useful flakes, showing that whoever made the tools was skilled at it. Some flakes were then struck again to create even sharper tools. Seafaring or swept away?
The stone tool discovery hammers home another point: ancient humans, whoever they were, somehow made it to these islands and found a way to survive.
Brumm does not think they did so by boat, however.
'Most likely, they crossed to Sulawesi from the Asian mainland in the same way rodents and monkeys are suspected to have done—by accident, presumably as castaways on natural 'rafts' of floating vegetation, maybe after a tsunami,' he says.
Flores, where H. floresiensis was found, is hundreds of miles south of Sulawesi. It's also possible hominins from the Philippines—maybe 'hobbits,' maybe not—first made it to Sulawesi, and then ended up on Flores, like how animals did, says van den Bergh.
'If you look at the islands from north to south, the fauna becomes increasingly impoverished,' he says. 'Luzon had rhinos, buffaloes, deer, wild pigs, two kinds of elephants. Sulawesi never had rhinos, but it did have wild pigs and both elephants. Flores had only one of the elephants–and several rat species.' The recent discovery at Calio in southern Sulawesi, Indonesia pushes back the presence of ancient human relatives on the island by hundreds of thousands of years. Photograph courtesy of the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia (BRIN)
The further from the Philippines–or the mainland–the fewer animals appear to have made it across.
The relationship between the hominins on Sulawesi and H. floresiensis and H. luzonensis cannot be made without fossil remains. But it's possible they were at least distantly related.
Our own species, Homo sapiens, and our relatives Neandertals and Denisovans did not yet exist, so van den Bergh says the small-bodied hominins most likely descended from Homo erectus, 'which we know was on the mainland at the right place at the right time.'
Thomas Ingicco, a paleoanthropologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France, and a National Geographic Explorer, agrees Homo erectus is the most likely ancestor of the hominins on South-East Asian islands in this period. Ingicco led a 2018 study documenting the earliest known stone tools and evidence of animal butchery in the Philippines but was not involved in this study.
He warns, though, that even though it's 'tempting to think that hominins may have arrived on Sulawesi first, more findings might come out from Luzon and Flores,' and it would therefore be too early, he says, 'to hypothesize too fast about migration paths.'
So, were these stone tool-making ancient hominins on Sulawesi 'hobbits,' Homo luzonensis, Homo erectus, or something else? Without any fossils, the answer remains unknown, at least for now.
'I can assure you that in Sulawesi,' van den Bergh says, 'the hunt for hominins will start soon.'
