Did a volcano on the island of Flores wipe out Homo floresiensis? Peter-Verreussel/Getty
About 50,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores, all the large animals disappeared at once. The losses included dwarf elephants, carnivorous birds 鈥 and a species of diminutive hominin known as the 鈥渉obbit鈥, or Homo floresiensis.
It鈥檚 not clear why. A volcano erupted, and the climate was shifting. But there is also tentative evidence that there was a new threat on the island: modern humans.
Hobbits were first described in 2004, after bones were found in the Liang Bua cave on Flores.…
