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Claims of an ancient human in the modern era shake the scientific community. Here's what you need to know

New Delhi, IndiaEdited By: Moohita Kaur GargUpdated: May 02, 2022, 04:37 PM IST
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Homo Floresiensis is a Lilliputian early human species that are believed to have existed approximately 60,00 to 700,000 years ago.  Photograph:(WION Web Team)

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As per claims presented by Gregory Forth, a retired anthropologist in his new book 'Between Ape and Human', the species called Homo Floresiensis is still alive and well. It lives on the Indonesian island of Flores, surviving the modern era

Do you remember the Hobbits from the insanely popular book and movie series Lord of the Rings? Looked like us humans, but shorter.

What if we were to tell you that humans actually had an ancestor that is pretty similar to J.R.R Tolkien's character? These ancient humans are still alive, according to claims.

Yes, you read that right. As per claims presented by Gregory Forth, a retired anthropologist in his new book 'Between Ape and Human', the species called Homo Floresiensis is still alive and well. It lives on the Indonesian island of Flores, surviving the modern era.

Homo Floresiensis is a Lilliputian early human species that are believed to have existed approximately 60,00 to 700,000 years ago.

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The species had been nicknamed 'hobbit' because of its small height; it is believed to have stood at under 4 feet, an approximate guess is 3 feet, 6 inches or 106 centimetres tall.

They were toolmakers and as of now, not much is known about their evolutionary history.

Human ancestor

In the modern-day, there have been claims of sightings of Hobbit-like people in Flores and Forth argues that it could very well be our ancestors.

Speaking to Live Science, he said that we simply don't know when this species became extinct or "dare I say -- we don't even know if it is extinct".

However, experts are sceptical about this claim. Some say that for a species to evade detection on an island of close to two million people is nearly impossible.

Whether Homo Floresiensis actually exists today or not remains to be seen. It could just be another enigma like the sasquatch or bigfoot, but stories about odd, seemingly alien creatures have always piqued people's interest, and this is no exception.

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(With inputs from agencies)

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Moohita Kaur Garg

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.” – Albus Dumbledore (J. viewMore