Scientists now believe long-lost “hobbit humans” may be living right alongside locals

[BeyondKnowledge]

"My Precious." 

On a more serious note.

It could account for the likes of elves/fairies/troll legends that have arisen from quite a few places around the globe.

Or at least put both our species on the same to similar page epoch-wise.

Not really. Elves and fairies were originally regular human size. They became little to tiny in the past couple of hundred years. Trolls, I will have to check on.

Then there are hodags, gremlins, etc... 

Given a small enough population in an isolated environment, yes I could see the hobbits living now or almost to the present. There small population meaning they are slowly dieing off.

[andy06shake]

Not really. Elves and fairies were originally regular human size. They became little to tiny in the past couple of hundred years. Trolls, I will have to check on.

Then there are hodags, gremlins, etc... 

Given a small enough population in an isolated environment, yes I could see the hobbits living now or almost to the present. There small population meaning they are slowly dieing off.

They are human-sized through, just a little on the small side. 

I agree that the shrinking of fairies and elves to tiny forms is mostly a literary and artistic development in the last few centuries.

And i think in some folklore elves and fairies have even been depicted as taller than humans, but size varies depending on region and story.

Nobody is suggesting they look like Tinker Bell all the same. 

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

https://www.splashtravels.com/world-hist...ian-island

[Image: https://denyignorance.com/uploader/image...49c335.jpg]
 

Just caught this article on the feeds, and thought my fellow D.I.ers would enjoy the speculation and discussion.

It seems that the locals that now live on these chain of Islands have folklore and stories of these Lai ho’a and ebu gogo and are separate but very similar cultural traditions, which is fascinating.
Could Homo floresiensis in fact still exist is small pockets and not gone extinct around 50,000 years ago as previously thought??

That would be awesome.

There are 196 uncontacted homo Sapien tribes noted, with an additional 200 not yet noted estimated.

If they can do that and not ever move beyond the Paleolithic era, then I dont doubt it for a second.

And The Island of Flores is probably where you'd find any remaining. Its a very specific thing. You need to be on an island with low predation rates to have island syndrome. 

And both those would contribute to their adaptation reaching its island apex as reclusive hobbit people that can hide and eat less food. 

So "hell yes" for the tropical island syndrome hobbit people! We need a closer living animal relative than the fucking chimpanzee anyway.

[Owlwatcher]

I think its very possible that aliens or somebody modified humans from our ape ancestors hundred of thousands of years ago, maybe tens of thousands of years ago. And some were taken off world to other locations in space for some purposes. They may have more than one human species created. Maybe humans, the Bigfoot, why not small humans.
    We hear stories of gnomes and leves and little people. Maybe they have technology more advanced than we do and can be here without us discovering them, only with storied encounters we take as myths of folklore.

[Halfswede]

Even when the 'hobbit' remains were found, villagers at the time said it was only two generations back that had told a story of running a tribe of them back to a cave in the mountains and burning them 'in' after one stole a baby. 

This came out when the remains were found, and I have no idea where the article would be, but it was something like 'my grandfather told ...' that they were basically harmless but mischievous and left alone until one stole a baby.  The village new where they lived and built a huge fire in the cave entrance in retaliation. 

These aren't places you can just go 'canvas'. Just interacting with the locals and being allowed to explore takes years of relationship-building.  There are mammal species that are often 'rediscovered' with only sightings every several decades.

[Kurokage]

Even when the 'hobbit' remains were found, villagers at the time said it was only two generations back that had told a story of running a tribe of them back to a cave in the mountains and burning them 'in' after one stole a baby. 

This came out when the remains were found, and I have no idea where the article would be, but it was something like 'my grandfather told ...' that they were basically harmless but mischievous and left alone until one stole a baby.  The village new where they lived and built a huge fire in the cave entrance in retaliation. 

These aren't places you can just go 'canvas'. Just interacting with the locals and being allowed to explore takes years of relationship-building.  There are mammal species that are often 'rediscovered' with only sightings every several decades.

From what I've read, a large chunk of the interiors of these islands are still unexplored.
In the article I posted, the natives spoke of little hairy nocturnal people long before they found the fossils of the hobbit.

[Johnny Canuck]

North American Indigenous folks speak of 'the Little People', when indeed, they acknowledge them at all.

[Runespider]

I had to look up the information since the article was really scant on details. 
 It seems the only physical evidence he was presented with were actually monkey bones. Which raises a concern for me. Humans aren't perfect witnesses after all, but we are excellent story tellers. 
 
  There's some other issues as well, the timeline for homo florensis has been adjust since their initial discovery. They're much older than originally thought, raising the question of if they actually interacted with modern humans or not. 
 Despite his statements to the contrary tool use is associated with homo florensis. The tool use is part of what is used to support the latest date of their survival, around 50,000 years ago. 
 While he cites an example of a native identifying a depiction of homo florensis as being the creature, it's an old and obsolete depiction. 
With more chimpanzee like features. Not the more accurate depiction that's more like a modern human.

[quintessentone]

More interesting findings and/or debates:

"Homo floresiensis is thought to have arrived on Flores around 1.27–1 million years ago.[sup][3][/sup][sup][4][/sup] There is debate as to whether H. floresiensis represents a descendant of Javanese Homo erectus that reduced its body size as a result of insular dwarfism, or whether it represents an otherwise undetected migration of small, Australopithecus or Homo habilis-grade archaic humans outside of Africa"

"In 2004, a separate species Homo floresiensis was named and described by Peter Brown et al., with LB1 as the holotype. A tooth, LB2, was referred to the species.[sup][1][/sup] LB1 is a fairly complete skeleton, including a nearly complete skull, which belonged to a 30-year-old woman, and has been nicknamed "Little Lady of Flores" or "Flo".[sup][1][/sup][sup][11][/sup] An arm bone provisionally assigned to H. floresiensis, specimen LB3, is about 74,000 years old. The specimens are not fossilized and have been described as having "the consistency of wet blotting paper". Once exposed, the bones had to be left to dry before they could be dug up.[sup][12][/sup][sup][13][/sup] The discoverers proposed that a variety of features, both primitive and derived, identify these individuals as belonging to a new species.[sup][1][/sup][sup][6][/sup] Based on previous date estimates, the discoverers also proposed that H. floresiensis lived contemporaneously with modern humans on Flores.[sup][14][/sup] Before publication, the discoverers were considering placing LB1 into her own genus, Sundanthropus floresianus (lit. 'Sunda human from Flores'); however, reviewers of the article recommended that, despite her size, she should be placed in the genus Homo.[sup][15]"

------
Now here are the challengers' claims:

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"[/sup]Professor Jacob had previously stated that he did not believe the specimens represented a different species, and claimed that the LB1 find was from a 25–30 year-old member of a omnivorous subspecies of H. sapiens; further speculating that it probably was a pygmy and that the size of its skull was even so much more small due to pathological microcephaly, which produces a small brain and skull.
 Professor Richard Roberts of the University of Wollongong in Australia and other anthropologists objected to this withholding of the evidence by an individual with self-proclaimed bias against contrary research investigating support for a new species of Homo, saying they feared that important scientific evidence would be sequestered by a small group of scientists who neither allowed access by other scientists nor published their own research.[sup][21][/sup] Jacob returned the remains on 23 February 2005 with portions severely damaged[sup][24][/sup] and missing two leg bones.[sup][25][/sup]
 
Press reports thus described the condition of the returned remains:
"[including] long, deep cuts marking the lower edge of the Hobbit's jaw on both sides, said to be caused by a knife used to cut away the rubber mould ... the chin of a second Hobbit jaw was snapped off and glued back together. Whoever was responsible misaligned the pieces and put them at an incorrect angle ... The pelvis was smashed, destroying details that reveal body shape, gait and evolutionary history.",[sup][26][/sup]causing the discovery team leader Morwood to remark,
"It's sickening; Jacob was greedy and acted totally irresponsibly."[sup][24]"[/sup]

Homo floresiensis - Wikipedia

Ugh!