Smallest adult human arm bone fossil so far discovered points to origins of ‘hobbit’

From ABC Science, 7 August 2024:

A 700,000-year-old fragment of arm bone has shed light on the origins of the early human species known as the “hobbit”.

The tiny piece of bone is from an early hobbit (Homo floresiensis) individual, which researchers estimate was just 100 centimetres tall.

This was 6cm smaller than its descendants, which lived 60,000 years ago.

While this change in height was unexpected to archaeologists, the discovery of the bone and some new teeth do solve the long-standing question of where H. floresiensis came from. Read more.