Tiny human species discovered

A SPECIES of tiny human that lived at the same time as our Homo sapiens ancestors more than 50,000 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists.

The hominin has been named Homo luzonensis after the island of Luzon in the Philippines, where its bones were found. It was less than 4ft tall and probably spent time swinging from trees.

It is the smallest hominin found to date, even tinier than Homo floresiensis – nicknamed the Hobbit due to its 4ft stature – which lived in Indonesia.

Both small human species probably shrank in a process called “island dwarfing”, because of limited resources when cut off from the mainland.

Archaeologists have found hand and foot bones, a thigh bone and seven teeth, and are searching for more. The bones and teeth show an odd mix of ancient hominid and modern human features. Its toe bones are more curved than ours, resembling those of Australopithecus, the upright apelike creatures that eventually evolved into man. Until now it was assumed Australopithecines had never left Africa.

Writing in the journal Nature, Florent Détroit, the lead author from the Museum of Natural History in Paris, said: “The discovery of Homo luzonensis underscores the complexity of the evolution, dispersal and diversity of the genus Homo outside of Africa.”

The tiny human would have lived between 50,000 and 67,000 years ago, during the same period as early modern humans, Neanderthals and a group known as the Denisovans, none of whom were still living in trees at the time. It is unknown why they died out. Although DNA is unlikely to survive, archaeologists believe they may be able to find proteins in the bones that could show the relationship between Homo luzonensis and other humans.

The first hominins are thought to have diverged from apes around 6-7 million years ago in Africa. Homo erectus reached Eurasia around 1.8million years ago and it was once assumed that all other hominins outside Africa evolved from it. The new findings suggest others may have left the continent.

Matthew Tocheri, of the department of anthropology at Lakehead University in Ontario, said it showed Homo erectus “might not have been the only globe-trotting early hominin”.

He added: “Our picture of hominin evolution in Asia during the Pleistocene just got even messier, more complicated and ... more interesting.”