HOBBITS, the nickname for the little human relative first discovered last year, were not Homo sapiens but a separate species, analysis of its brain has confirmed.

Reconstruction of the brain of Homo floresiensis, the 18,000-year-old hominid standing just over 3ft tall, revealed features that put it firmly on a different branch of humanity’s family tree. The findings refute suggestions that the skeleton belonged to a pygmy, or a modern human being with microcephaly, a congenital disorder that stunts brain growth.

Homo floresiensis’s brain is markedly different from that of either, and from that of chimpanzees and Homo erectus, the human ancestor from which it is thought to have evolved. “What we have here is a little brain unique in its appearance compared to anything seen before,” Dean Falk, Professor of Anthropology at Florida State University, said.

“It’s got to be a new species. The scaling of brain to body isn’t at all what we’d expect to find in pygmies, and the shape is all wrong to be a microcephalic. This is something new.”

Homo floresiensis was hailed as one of the most significant finds in 150 years of palaeoanthropology when announced last October by a team led by Peter Brown, of the University of New England in Australia.

A female, named LB1 after the Liang Bua cave in Indonesia in which it was found, had a brain a quarter of the size of modern man. Dr Brown’s team identified it as a new species, rewriting the story of human evolution. It offered compelling evidence that Homo sapiens lived alongside more primitive relatives until shortly before the dawn of recorded history, and suggested a tantalising explanation for myths of elves and dwarves.

Professor Falk’s independent team examined LB1’s brain case with computer scanning technology for clues. Living brains make lasting impressions on the inside of the skull, so the team took a cast of the brain cavity to build a model of the Homo floresiensis brain.

The results, published today in the journal Science, point unequivocally to its status as a previously unknown species.

“I came to this study very sceptical about that, I’m not one to toe the party line,” Professor Falk said. “But as we did this work we developed a whole new respect for the team that made the identification. They got it right. It’s definitely a new species. I expected that, because it was chimp-sized, the Homo floresiensis brain would probably resemble a chimp’s. It turned out I was dead wrong, and I’m utterly amazed.”

It did not match latex brain models from 10 human skulls, including a microcephalic and a pygmy, 18 chimpanzee skulls, and 5 Homo erectus skulls. The top of the skull had grown normally, which it does not with microcephaly.

Several features point to brain development more advanced than in Homo erectus or chimpanzees, indicating an ability for sophisticated reasoning and planning. This could explain the complex tools and evidence of fire found around the hobbit fossils; a small brain was not necessarily an impediment to refined thought.

Another six Homo floresiensis fossils have since been found, each with a skull of similar size and shape.

Professor Falk’s work, which was funded by the National Geographic Society, will be featured in Ultimate Survivor, a television programme to be screened on the National Geographic Channel on Sunday, March 20, at 8pm.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Sacha Baron Cohen forced to tone down Brüno