Human History: The Indonesian Hobbit and the Cradle of European Man

Twenty years ago, on the Indonesian island of Flores, scientists discovered fossils of an early human species that stood about 1.07 meters tall and earned the nickname “hobbit.” The remains of Homo florensis date back to between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago. A new study by experts from the University of Tokyo suggests that the ancestors of hobbits were even shorter – by 6 cm, to be exact – and lived 700,000 years ago. The fossils were unearthed at Mata Menge, a few dozen kilometres away. Scientists do not yet know where to place hobbits on the ladder of human evolution – whether they descended from Homo erectus or our even more primitive ancestors.

The cradle of European civilization may be located in the southwestern part of the German Swabian Jura. Archaeologists have drawn this conclusion in the light of several 40,000-year-old figurines carved from mammoth bone discovered there more than 20 years ago. During archaeological excavations, a flute from a swan’s neck bone was also found, considered the world’s oldest musical instrument. These discoveries mark the most critical threshold in human development: the ability to create pictorial and figurative representations. Our ancestors are far from simple cavemen – they are hunter-gatherers with a high level of spirituality and the ability to express themselves through art and music.