Nearly two decades ago, in 2004, a team of researchers announced the discovery of the fossilized remains belonging to what they suspected was a species of upright-walking early humans.
Named Homo floresiensis due to the fact that the evidence of their existence was found on the island of Flores in Indonesia, these early humans were only about one meter tall, prompting researchers to bring up the nickname “hobbit” – a reference to a fictional race in J.R.R. Tolkien’s works who were also referred to as halflings due to their short stature.
Although Homo floresiensis is believed to have gone extinct about 50,000 years ago, there may be a slim chance that living members of this species might still exist out there, argues Gregory Forth, a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta.
According to Forth’s interview with Debrief earlier this year, his attention was drawn to the stories of some kind of small ape-like humanoids, the lai ho’a, which circulated among the Lio people on the island.
“What really interested me in the lai ho’a is that it was small, like the figures in Nagé country, but it was reckoned still to be alive. And indeed, there were a few people around, it seemed, who claimed to have seen one or more,” Forth said.
These stories, which he encountered in 2003, and the subsequent discovery of the Homo floresiensis fossil not long after, led Forth to investigate the subject further and to conclude that some of the descriptions of the lai ho’a provided by the Lio appear to be similar to what Homo floresiensis might have looked like.
Regardless, however, physical evidence supporting the claim that these prehistoric “hobbits” may still exist in some remote wilderness on Flores is yet to be discovered.