The ‘hobbit’ may not coexisted with Homo sapiens – El Comercio (Ecuador)

Homo floresiensis , also known as ‘hobbit ‘ was probably not coeval of modern man in the Southeast Asia , according to the results of a group of published on Wednesday, March 30, 2016 in the journal Nature researchers.

after years of work, the research determined that the bones found on the Indonesian island of Flores have a length of between 60 000 and 100 000 million years. So far, the scientific claimed that some findings dating back only 18,000 years ago.

This would mean that the ‘hobbit’ would have been neighbors for thousands of years Homo sapiens , which came about Australia about 50 000 years ago, and that may have had contact. According to the study published on Wednesday, March 30, that erroneous initial dating is due to a failure in the classification of terrestrial strata .

A portion of the floor of the cave in which were found the remains was apparently eroded and filled with latest terrestrial material, something that not was aware on research conducted between 2001 and 2004 .

in 2003 the remains of several instances of Homo floresiensis in the cave of Lianb Bua under several meters of strata found.

The find caused a huge stir: the ‘hobbit’ measured just a meter and its cranial capacity was similar to that of a chimp . He reminded primitive species that more than a million years ago peopled Africa and Asia.

The international team, led by Thomas Sutikna , the Australian College of Wollongong , reanalyzed for eight years bones and terrestrial strata found close to where they were found.

Scientists dated back sediments by so-called Thermoluminescence, luminiescencia stimulated by infrared (IRSL) and the argon-argon method, and used uranium-thorium method for dating three small blocks.

The analysis showed that the bones and their corresponding layers had a length of between 60 000 and 100 000 years, the team explains in Nature.

The stone tools that had been attributed to Homo floresiensis would have a length of between 50 000 and 190 000 years.

“Parts of Southeast Asia could be inhabited by hominids Denisova or other primitive species”, experts, some of whom worked in the first analysis.

However, according to scientists, remains an open question “whether the floresiensis Homo survived that time and reached coincider modern men, Denisova or other species on Flores or somewhere else”. “Future findings could help answer that question,” they add.