Homo floresiensis Probably Didn’t Hunt Stegodons or Use Fire

When paleoanthropologists announced the discovery of Homo floresiensis on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, the tiny, small-brained species quickly earned a reputation as an evolutionary surprise. The extinct hominin was thought to have hunted elephant-like animals and controlled fire despite standing barely 109 cm (3.5 feet) tall and possessing a brain roughly one-third the size of a modern human’s. New research led by from Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History challenges that picture.

“Homo floresiensis was originally described as having relatively advanced behaviors for a short-statured and small-brained hominin species based on purported evidence of fire use and the hunting of large game,” said lead author Dr. E. Grace Veatch and her colleagues.

“For example, skeletal remains of Homo floresiensis and a dwarfed species of proboscidean, Stegodon florensis insularis, were uncovered together at Liang Bua in association with dense concentrations of stone artifacts, interpreted at the time of discovery as ‘big game’ hunting technology.”

“Some of the smaller animal remains at the site were also described as charred, implying that they were burned by Homo floresiensis, supporting the idea of a relatively small-brained yet behaviorally advanced fire-using hominin.”

In their study, Dr. Veatch and co-authors examined more than 3,100 Stegodon bone fragments as well as nearly 7,000 rodent remains recovered from Liang Bua Ca