Even the most ardent fans of Tolkien hardly truly believe that hobbits or, say, gnomes really existed. However, now we have data on the structure of the remains of both. Fossil creatures called hobbits and gnomes have been found in Indonesia and Micronesia
In 2004, the remains of hobbits were discovered in Indonesia on the island of Flores. This was the name of the dwarf hominids, which, according to some scientists, are the direct descendants of Homo erectus. And, despite the fact that the debate about the origin of the hobbits continued and some considered them to be simply a "shredded" population of Homo sapiens, the discoverers of the tiny hominids managed to designate them as a completely new species - Homo floresiensis.
Three years later, on one of the islands of the Pacific state of Palau in Micronesia, anthropologist Lee Berger from the University of the Witwatersand in Johannesburg (South Africa) stunned colleagues with a statement that he had found leg bones, teeth and fragments of the skull of dwarfs. So he christened the humanoid creatures that lived here from one to three thousand years ago and who, in his opinion, had a height of no more than 120 centimeters. According to the scientist, they had many features of similarity to the hobbits, however, according to Berger, they hardly deserved to be singled out in some unique form. He theorized that the growth of the creatures was reduced due to poor nutrition and genetic isolation.
However, in an article published August 27 in PLoS ONE, researchers at two American and one Australian universities question Berger's findings. In their opinion, the so-called gnomes from the islands of Micronesia, most likely, were not really dwarfs - they were just not very tall people. According to anthropologist Greg Nelson and his colleagues, these creatures were at least 155 centimeters tall and a very graceful build. “In other words, they were very thin,” Nelson says.
Nelson and colleague Scott Fitzpatrick, a specialist in ancient Palauan culture, examined in detail all the remains of the skeletons that Berger discovered, and their Australian co-author Jeffrey Clarke compared them with remains found elsewhere in the region. In their article, scientists presented a lot of information not only on the anatomy of the ancient inhabitants of the region, but also on the models of the tools that they used. As it turns out, Berger, an expert on ancient hominids rather than "gnomes," made a number of annoying mistakes. He associated small bones with small stature, while even smaller bones can be found at many archaeological sites in Micronesia than those discovered by Berger. And they belong to ordinary representatives of Homo sapiens.
“One of Berger's biggest mistakes was rushing to publish,” Nelson said. - He did not give himself time to understand the history of the region in which he worked for the first time. It is very important to know its full history, and not just be interested in individual bones."
On the anatomical side, Berger appears to have made a mistake in assessing people's height by the size of the head of their thigh, the ball that connects the lower limb and the hip joint. They are indeed very small, but the relative size of their intact leg bones suggests that they were incredibly thin people, slightly shorter than the average modern man.
Berger argued that his fragmentary cranial evidence shows that the brows are generally very ancient for the human forehead (they were in the Neanderthals as well) - Nelson and his colleagues argue that the skull fragments belonged to modern-sized heads.
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In addition, Berger argued that the unusually large teeth and fragments of the jaw of ancient creatures suggest that they have so-called megadontism - a condition common for short hominids - distant relatives of Homo sapiens. However, Nelson, based on a comparative analysis of the skulls of the "gnomes" and other ancient inhabitants of Palau, stated that large teeth were common in this region, and in general for peoples engaged in hunting and gathering. Smaller teeth subsequently arose in cultures that had already mastered agriculture. And if Berger's group were to compare the teeth of the "gnomes" and other ancient inhabitants of the Pacific region, they could see that large teeth cannot be considered any particularly unusual feature.
One way or another, having studied all kinds of burials in Micronesia, scientists came to the conclusion that archaeological data do not confirm the existence of a separate isolated group of people evolving separately from other inhabitants of the region - both biologically and culturally.
As for the hobbits of Homo floresiensis, there is also a lot of controversy associated with them - including in connection with the real size of their bones. However, their research has not yet been settled.