At first, the team thought perhaps the tiny skull and other bones belonged to a child, but as Sutikna cleaned the fossil at the hotel, he saw it had the molar teeth of an adult. It appeared to be a completely new kind of human, a female specimen with a perplexing combination of features that stood just over 3 feet (about 1 meter tall) and would have weighed around 66 pounds (30 kilograms).
“We were all surprised by the fossil, because after cleaning it could be seen that the teeth had all grown and were intact. The skull bones also showed that it was an adult bone, not a child’s skull,” said Sutikna, who subsequently took the fossil to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.
The volume of its braincase, measured with mustard seeds smuggled from Australia through Indonesian customs, was around 400 milliliters, similar to a chimpanzee. (The volume of a modern human braincase is 1,500 milliliters.) Its legs were short, with disproportionately large feet, and its arms long like a primate.
Initial dating of carbon in the sediment determined the remains to be 18,000 years old, which was startlingly young, putting the previously unknown species closer in time to us than the Neanderthals. (The dates were revised in 2016, estimating instead that the hobbit was 50,000 to 60,000 years old.)
The Liang Bua team named the species Homo floresiensis after the island where the fossils were discovered.
“We were all surprised by the fossil, because after cleaning it could be seen that the teeth had all grown and were intact. The skull bones also showed that it was an adult bone, not a child’s skull,” said Sutikna, who subsequently took the fossil to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.
The volume of its braincase, measured with mustard seeds smuggled from Australia through Indonesian customs, was around 400 milliliters, similar to a chimpanzee. (The volume of a modern human braincase is 1,500 milliliters.) Its legs were short, with disproportionately large feet, and its arms long like a primate.
Initial dating of carbon in the sediment determined the remains to be 18,000 years old, which was startlingly young, putting the previously unknown species closer in time to us than the Neanderthals. (The dates were revised in 2016, estimating instead that the hobbit was 50,000 to 60,000 years old.)
The Liang Bua team named the species Homo floresiensis after the island where the fossils were discovered.