Researchers Discover Very Small Human Ancestors — VOA Learning English
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Twenty years ago on an Indonesian island, scientists discovered ancient bone remains of an early human species that stood about one meter tall.
These early humans became popularly known as “hobbits.” The name comes for the small humanlike creatures that appear in books by English writer J.R.R Tolkien.
Now a new study suggests ancestors of the “hobbits” were even shorter.
Yousuke Kaifu of the University of Tokyo was a co-writer of the study. Kaifu said in an email, “We did not expect that we would find smaller individuals from such an old site.”
The discoverers of the first hobbit fossils named them after characters in the The Lord of the Rings books. The fossils date back to between 60,000 and…
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