The ‘Hobbit Human’ Was Probably Just Someone With Down Syndrome, Scientists Say
The late archaeologist Mike Morwood made history in 2003 when he and his team discovered what seemed to be an entirely newly discovered species of extinct human on the island of Flores in Indonesia. The 15,000-year-old 3.5 foot-tall remains were dubbed Homo floresiensis, but quite quickly nicknamed “Hobbit” man, in reference to a movie that was popular at the time. Unfortunately for whimsy, a new study seems to show that Hobbit man was not a new type of human at all, but a human suffering from the effects of the common genetic condition Down Syndrome. The diagnosis rests on skeletal remains of a former Flores dweller now dubbed LB1, the only remains found in Morwood’s excavation of the Ling Bua Cave on Flores to have a complete skull and thighbones. A team of researchers including Robert B. Eckhardt, professor of developmental genetics and evolution at Penn State, Maciej Henneberg, professor of anatomy and pathology at the University of Adelaide, and Kenneth Hsü, a Chinese geologist and paleoclimatologist did an in-depth study of the remains, and