Hobbits 'are a separate species'

The one metre

tall, 30kg

humans roamed the Indonesian island of Flores, perhaps up to 8,000 years ago.

Two papers in the journal Nature now support the idea they were an entirely new species of human.

The team, which discovered the tiny remains in Liang Bua cave on Flores, contends that the population belongs to the species Homo floresiensis - separate from our own grouping, Homo sapiens.

One team

analysed remains of the Hobbit foot

The group found that, in some ways, it is incredibly human. The big toe is aligned with the others and the joints make it possible to extend the toes as the body's full weight falls on the foot, attributes not found in great apes.

But in other respects, it is incredibly primitive

that resembles that of a chimpanzee.

So unless the Flores Hobbits became more primitive over time - a rather unlikely scenario - they must have branched off the human line at an earlier date than Homo sapiens.