An exhibition on the Flores hominid is on show at Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science.
UOW hobbit makes it big in Japan
Illawara Mercury, 27 April 2010
For the first time, people in Japan have the chance to come face to face with the human “hobbit”, a miniature species first discovered by University of Wollongong and Indonesian researchers in 2004.
And we could soon see a replica in the Illawarra.
The Homo floresiensis exhibit in Tokyo includes an anatomically correct model of the hobbit, a 1.1m tall female adult who existed on the Indonesian island of Flores until about 18,000 years ago.
Other discoveries exhibited at the National Museum of Nature and Science (NMNS) include a giant rat, similar in size to a household cat.
The reconstruction involved careful measurements of skeletal elements and the combined efforts of palaeoanthropologists, anatomists and artists.
The original findings were made during a nine-year period from 2001 to 2005 and 2007 to 2010, according to UOW professor in archaeology Mike Morwood.
