First “Hobbits”, Now Pygmies?

Recently, an extinct group of tiny people, Flores man, was found and declared to be a new human species.

However, in the following puzzling development,

INDONESIAN scientists have found a community of Pygmy people on the eastern island of Flores, near a village where Australian scientists discovered a dwarf-sized skeleton last year and declared it a new human species, a newspaper says.

This latest discovery will likely raise more controversy over the finding of homo floresiensis, claimed by Australian scientists Mike Morwood and Peter Brown in September last year. They dubbed the new species "hobbits".

Kompas Daily reported yesterday that the Pygmy community had been found during an April expedition in the village of Rampapasa, about 1km from the village of Liang Bua where the "hobbits" were found.

Could it be something in the air down there that shrinks people?

Anyway, this discovery certainly ratchets up the row over origins because some scientists dispute that Flores man is really a new species at all, and are accusing its promoters of scientific “terrorism”.