Where Did the Hobbit Come From?

Foot Bones
The scientific debate over whether the Flores hobbit truly is a new species of human or a Homo sapiens deformed by genetic disorders has raged for years. But new research just published in the journal Nature indicates that the hobbit may indeed be a separate species. Scientists analyzed the foot bones of one hobbit, and found that it was unusually long for the hobbit's small size, and far flatter than a human foot, somewhat like an ape's. According to William Jungers, a paleoanthropologist at Stony Brook Medical Center and lead author of the Nature paper, the hobbit foot "exhibits a broad range of primitive features that are not seen in modern humans of any body size."

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