Scientists said yesterday that stone artifacts found with remains of ancient, tiny "Hobbit"-like people on a remote Indonesian island are similar to much older island artifacts, offering new support for the theory that the fossils represent a unique species of archaic human.
The Australian-Indonesian research team said in the journal Nature that its analysis "negates claims" by critics that only modern humans could have made such tools, and that the Hobbits, with grapefruit-size brains, were modern humans afflicted with microcephaly, a debilitating genetic condition.
"We don't know who made the earlier tools, but they are the same tools, using the same technology," said Australian National University archaeologist Adam Brumm, lead author of the study. "This doesn't support the idea that modern humans made the tools."
Doesn't seem like this will change too many minds.
Update: More from NGS.