It flared up 46 thousand years ago
the extinction of dwarf hominids, often informally called "hobbits", a group of Australian scientists led by Thomas Satikna blamed the immediate ancestors of modern humans. The researchers came to this conclusion when they found the teeth of Homo sapiens in the Indonesian cave of Liang Bua. Earlier in the same cave were found the remains of the "hobbit" - a man of Flores.
The age of the discovered human remains, according to scientists, is about 46 thousand years, which means that the ancestors of modern people could for some time live in a cave at the same time as the "hobbits" - and, in all likelihood, be at enmity with them.
It is assumed that Homo floresiensis appeared on Earth about 130 thousand years ago, and became extinct around the period to which the discovered remains of ancient people belong. Unlike the hobbits from the books of John R. R. Tolkien and the films made on them, the ancient hominids, most likely, in terms of the level of intelligence development were very far from even the people of their day - the Floresian man had a rather modest brain in comparison with the human. The mass of hominids reached no more than 50 kilograms.
As the researchers suggest, "hobbits" lived in the Liang Bua cave long before people came there. As scientists suggest, Homo sapiens, being stronger and more tech-savvy than the hominids they found on the island, decided to simply get rid of neighbors with whom they would otherwise have to compete for resources. Ultimately, according to experts, it was humans who exterminated Homo floresiensis.
The scientists presented the results of their research during the annual meeting of the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution.
Relatively recently, another group of researchers representing the University of Wollongong announced the probable former "neighborhood" of Homo sapiens and Homo floresiensis. On the island of Flores, they also managed to find the hearth of the ancestors of modern people in about the same place where the remains of the Floresian man were found in the past. However, then the researchers did not proceed from the assumption that the two species were certainly hostile towards each other, and that it was this enmity that could cause the disappearance of the "hobbits" from the face of the Earth.
Dmitry Erusalimsky
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