Shocking discovery: Did the Flores man not go extinct after all?

The island of Flores has guarded one of science’s greatest mysteries for decades: could it be that the Flores man, the tiny human species often referred to as “hobbits”, did not actually die out completely? Anthropologist Gregory Forth has been collecting evidence for over forty years – and based on accounts from local people, it’s possible that these small, ape-like humanoids may still live deep in the island’s jungles.

Flores, located in Indonesia, has long been a unique site for archaeological and anthropological research. According to the scientific community, the extremely small-bodied human ancestor known as Homo floresiensis lived there around 50,000 years ago, though they are believed to be long extinct. Gregory Forth, however, believes that a small population of the species may still be alive today, continuing to survive in the island’s jungles, writes Popular Mechanics.

Could hobbits still live on Flores today?

Forth has been studying this mysterious species for nearly four decades, often compared to the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings series. He began his research at the University of Oxford, later continuing his work at the University of Alberta in Canada.

He summarised his decades of research in his 2022 book, Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid, and spoke in detail about his findings in an interview with The Debrief.

The professor was particularly interested in the lai ho’a, a small humanoid said by the Nage and Lio communities to still inhabit the region today. According to the tribes’ accounts, these beings walk upright, but are hairier than humans and have distinctly ape-like facial features.

Forth also reported that several members of these tribes claimed to have encountered Flores people in the jungle.

The Flores man may have been extremely small

The professor was particularly astonished when, in 2003, fossils were discovered that matched previous descriptions of the Flores man perfectly. Reconstructions by palaeoanthropologists almost exactly reflected what locals had described to him a year earlier.