Komodo Dragon Study Challenges Homo floresiensis Intelligence

New research published July 3 in Science Advances challenges the long-held belief that Homo floresiensis, the 'hobbit' species discovered on Flores Island, Indonesia, in 2003, was cognitively advanced. Scientists led by Elizabeth Grace Veatch of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History fed a goat to a Komodo dragon named Rinca at Zoo Atlanta and compared the resulting tooth marks to Stegodon florensis insularis bones from Liang Bua cave. They found Komodo dragon tooth scores concentrated on meaty areas like shoulders and hips, while H. floresiensis cut marks appeared on less meaty regions such as skull, spine, and feet, suggesting the hominins scavenged leftovers rather than hunted. Analysis of over 3,000 Stegodon bone fragments revealed only one showed fire exposure, likely from later Homo sapiens. Among over 4,000 rodent bones from H. floresiensis layers, none showed heating, while one-fifth from H. sapiens layers were cooked. These findings indicate H. floresiensis did not use fire or hunt large game, aligning them more with Australopithecines. The species, standing just over three feet tall with grapefruit-sized skulls, survived nearly a million years on Flores despite lacking these skills. The study reignites debate over their ancestry: whether they descended from larger Homo erectus via insular dwarfism or from primitive species like Homo habilis or Australopithecus.