sapiens

The discovery of a tiny arm bone suggests that an ancient human dubbed "hobbits" only shrank down to their diminutive size after they arrived on an Indonesian island a million years ago, scientists said on Aug. 6.

Much about the pint-sized Homo floresiensis has been shrouded in mystery since the first fossils suggesting their existence were found on the island of Flores in 2003.

Scientists have extracted from dental enamel the oldest human genetic material ever obtained, helping clarify the pivotal place in the human evolutionary lineage of a mysterious extinct species called Homo antecessor known from Spanish cave fossils.