Ancient tools show mysterious humans occupied Indonesian island

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - The diminutive prehistoric human species dubbed the “Hobbit” that inhabited the isle of Flores apparently had company on other Indonesian islands long before our species, Homo sapiens, arrived on the scene.

Scientists on Wednesday announced the discovery of stone tools at least 118,000 years old at a site called Talepu on the island of Sulawesi, indicating a human presence. The scientists said no fossils of these individuals were found in con- junction with the tools, leaving the toolmakers’ identity a mystery.

“We now have direct evidence that when modern humans arrived on Sulawesi, supposedly between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago and aided by watercraft, they must have encountered an archaic group of humans that was already present on the island long before,” said archaeologist Gerrit van den Bergh of University of Wollongong in Australia.

The 2004 announcement of the discovery in a Flores cave of fossils of Homo floresiensis, a species about 3 feet 6 inches (1.1 meter) tall that made tools and hunted little elephants, jolted the scientific community.

“Like on Flores, where Homo floresiensis evolved under isolated conditions over a period of almost 1 million years, Sulawesi could also have harbored an isolated human lineage. And the search for fossil remains of the Talepu toolmaker is now open,” van den Bergh said.