PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY—BBC News reports that a new genetic study led by Serena Tucci of Princeton University suggests the small-statured people who live on the Indonesian island of Flores today evolved separately from Homo floresiensis—the small-sized hominin known as the “Hobbit,” whose fossils were discovered in the island's Liang Bua Cave some 15 years ago. It had been previously thought that Flores' ancient population might have mixed with Homo sapiens when the latter arrived on the island thousands of years ago, producing the ancestors of the modern so-called pygmy population. Tucci explained that, because scientists have not been able to recover “Hobbit” DNA from the fossils, the team members employed a statistical method to look for ancient DNA in the modern Flores population. The researchers found traces of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry, but no “chunks” of DNA of unknown origin. They did, however, identify gene variants associated with short stature, which also occur in other current Homo sapiens groups, and genes associated with plant-based diets. Since smaller individuals have lower energy requirements, they may have been better adapted to survive on the poor diet available on the island. “Together, the evidence makes it unlikely that the pygmies are in any way derived from Hobbits,” concluded team member Richard Green of the University of California, Santa Cruz. For more on the search for DNA from early humans, go to “Caveman Genetics.”
