Hobbit-like ancient people may still be alive

In an article for The Scientist, Gregory Fort, an anthropologist at the University of Alberta (Canada), claimsOpinion: Another Species of Hominin May Still Be Alive / The Scientistthat one of the species of ancient people can still live in Indonesia. In his opinion, paleontologists and other scientists have missed a potentially startling discovery by ignoring indigenous stories about a "man-ape" living in the forests of Flores Island.

Fort devoted a whole book to his research, which is due out in May. In it, he details stories and eyewitness accounts of the indigenous Lio people about strange animals that look like small people, but do not have developed speech and technology. In total, he cites about 30 eyewitness accounts.

The Leo consider them to be imperfect descendants of humans, but Fort believes the situation could be just the opposite. He drew attention to the fossils of the species Homo floresiensis discovered in this place.

These are the dwarf ancestors of people who, as previously thought, died out 50 thousand years ago. They are also called hobbits (the height of the best preserved adult

did not exceedFurther evidence for small-bodied hominins from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia / Nature 110 cm). Their description matches the "monkey people" of the lio stories.

Fort notes that these reports cannot be ignored: it is possible that Homo floresiensis still exists - or, at least they died out no later than 100 years ago - and their search and study will allow us to learn much more about evolution of people.