Homo floresiensis
- Date
- 2003-2004 · confidence high
- Place
- Liang Bua, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
- Credited to
- Indonesian-Australian team (Mike Morwood, Radien Soejono, Thomas Sutikna)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
The discovery of a human species barely a metre tall with a small brain, which lived on Flores until about 50,000 years ago. It showed that human evolution on islands produced unexpected lineages.
Some researchers argued they were modern humans with pathologies; most now accept it as a distinct species. Its age was revised in 2016 (100-50 ka).
What it led to
- revision of the human evolutionary tree
- the study of insular dwarfism in hominins
- the finds at Mata Menge (2016) and Homo luzonensis