The Return of the Hobbits The tiny human remains, nicknamed “hobbits” in reference to the book and film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, were found in the Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores (Indonesia) back in 2004. Since then, four different views have been propagated:
1. The hobbits were Pygmies—“true” (modern) humans, but quite small.
2. The hobbits were not Pygmies, but were nonetheless true humans; instead, they were diseased with microcephaly, a condition resulting in abnormally small skeletons.
3. The hobbits were a separate species from modern humans—a diminutive ancestor (or “cousin”) called Homo floresiensis.
Plus, the view taken in the recently published paper:
4. The hobbits were true humans but did not grow to normal size because of environmental factors (specifically, insufficient nutrition)...
An Australian team led by Peter Obendorf of Melbourne’s RMIT University is arguing that the hobbits were indeed modern humans, but that their poor nutrition was responsible for their small size. Obendorf explained that severe iodine deficiency during pregnancy can cause dwarfism, leaving an otherwise normal human shorter than a meter (3.3 ft) tall. The hobbits’ skulls would have only held a brain the size of chimpanzee’s.
Obendorf’s team came to the conclusion while studying images of the Flores fossils’ skulls, then comparing those skulls’ anatomical features to those of museum specimens of humans that suffered congenital hypothyroidism.
However, Peter Brown of Armidale, Australia’s University of New England, who was on the team that discovered the remains, considers Obendorf’s team’s hypothesis “sheer speculation,” even going so far as to accuse the Obendorf’s team of having “little and no experience with fossil hominids.” But Jeremy Austin, deputy director of Adelaide University’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, says it may take an analysis of genetic data to sort out the exact status of the hobbits. For now, however, such a prospect is unlikely given “poor preservation of the Liang Bua material and extensive contamination by modern human DNA of material recovered from the site.”
What’s our take on the hobbits?Starting with the biblical worldview, there are only three options for what the hobbits could be:
1. The hobbits were a nonhuman species created by God (part of one of the ape kinds, that is) and therefore were neither made in His image nor were they either ancestors or cousins of modern humans.
2. The hobbits were true humans, but a disease, poor nutrition, or some other Curse-caused factor (Genesis 3) prevented them from achieving a more normal size.
3. The hobbits were true humans whose small stature represented some of the created variation God designed in Adam and Eve.
Let’s take a look of each of these possibilities in turn. First, were the hobbits some type of ape? If all we had to go on were the fossils, we would never be able to say for sure. We weren’t there to actually observe how much intelligence the hobbits exhibited, for instance; the intelligence of a creature now fossilized can only be indirectly approximated.
One of the ways intelligence can be indirectly approximated, however, is by looking at the presumed habitat of a fossil (in this case, for signs of intelligence). When it comes to the Flores hobbits, the Liang Bua cave also housed stone tools and signs of hunting and the controlled use of fire. These are all clear signs of human intelligence—patterns of behavior that distinguish humans from apes.
Furthermore, there is an incentive for the fossils’ finders to interpret the find as a human ancestor rather than “simply” a variation of modern humans. Writing on the find, creationist anthropologist Marvin Lubenow explained:
Because of the tremendous fascination the public has regarding our ancestry, a fossil hunter who finds a “human” fossil that seems to be unique receives much fame and fortune. . . . Thus, there is great incentive to be the first to find something new. . . . This has been the history of human fossil hunting, and it appears to be what is going on with the hobbits. However, after sober reflection by evolutionists, the claims for these fossils are becoming less sensational.
Simply put, although it would be possible (within the biblical worldview) for the hobbits to be an undiscovered species of ape, given all the evidence, the hobbits were definitely human.
Second, were the hobbits true humans, but suffering from some disease? Obviously, Obendorf’s team believes so after its comparison; in addition to congenital hypothyroidism, a condition called microcephaly has been postulated as the cause of the small-headed and small-bodied hobbits.
Microcephaly or some other disease or condition (environmental, genetic, or both)—that is, a factor caused by the Curse—helps explain why, in addition to the small stature of the hobbits, bones throughout their skeletons were deformed in places. This also explains why Obendorf’s team found similarities between the hobbits’ skulls and the microcephalic skulls they compared them to.
Thus, diseased or otherwise unhealthy humans—but true, “modern” humans nonetheless—remains a definite possibility that has been corroborated by some of the evidence.
Finally, what of the third possibility: that these hobbits were healthy humans whose genes simply restricted them to small size, just like the fully human Pygmy peoples who live in central Africa? Again, this isn’t such a strange possibility; there are thousands of humans of abnormally small stature living today, just as there are thousands of humans of abnormally large stature. The Bible speaks of giants; why not also those much shorter than average? But regardless of their stature, all people are descendants of Adam, created in the image of God—which also explains the hobbits’ apparent use of fire, stone tools, and hunting.
In other words, instead of their small size being a factor of the Curse (through disease, malnutrition, or something else), their small size would have been a built-in feature from creation: genetic diversity, just as is programmed in humans for skin, hair, and eye color (for example).
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