[6] However, more extensive stratigraphic and chronological work has pushed the dating of the most recent evidence of its existence back to 50,000 years ago.

[1][6] Based on previous date estimates, the discoverers also proposed that H. floresiensis lived contemporaneously with modern humans on Flores.

",[26] causing the discovery team leader Morwood to remark, "It's sickening; Jacob was greedy and acted totally irresponsibly.

He stated that the damages occurred during transport from Yogyakarta back to Jakarta[26][27] despite the claimed physical evidence that the jawbone had been broken while making a mould of the bones.

Some news media, such as the BBC, expressed the opinion that the restriction was to protect Jacob, who was considered "Indonesia's king of palaeoanthropology", from being proved wrong.

[26] Because of the deep neighbouring Lombok Strait, Flores remained an isolated island during episodes of low sea level.

[4] In 2016, fossil teeth and a partial jaw from hominins assumed to be ancestral to H. floresiensis were discovered at Mata Menge, about 74 km (46 mi) from Liang Bua.

The first proposes that H. floresiensis descended from an early migration of very primitive small Australopithecus/Homo habilis-grade archaic humans outside of Africa prior to 1.75 million years ago.

[34][35][36][37][38] Other authors have argued that H. floresiensis instead likely represents the descendants of a population of Javanese Homo erectus that became isolated on Flores, with the small body size being the result of insular dwarfism, a well known evolutionary trend found among various island animals.

[40][41][5][43][42] These authors also dispute some of the similarities to Australopithecus and Homo habilis-grade archaic humans,[10] and suggest that others may have been the result of evolutionary reversals/convergence.

[46] The small brain size of H. floresiensis at 417 cc prompted hypotheses that the specimens were simply H. sapiens with a birth defect, rather than the result of neurological reorganisation.

[52] In 2007, Falk found that H. floresiensis brains were similar in shape to modern humans, and the frontal and temporal lobes were well-developed, which would not have been the case were they microcephalic.

[56] A 2007 study postulated that the skeletons were those of humans who suffered from Laron syndrome, which was first reported in 1966, and is most common in inbreeding populations, which may have been the scenario on the small island.

The estimated height of LB1 is at the lower end of the average for afflicted human women, but the endocranial volume is much smaller than anything exhibited in Laron syndrome patients.

They said that various features of H. floresiensis are diagnostic characteristics, such as enlarged pituitary fossa, unusually straight and untwisted humeral heads, relatively thick limbs, double rooted premolar, and primitive wrist morphology.

[59] Also, in 2009, anthropologists Colin Groves and Catharine FitzGerald compared the Flores bones with those of ten people who had had cretinism, and found no overlap.

[63] From 2006, physical anthropologist Maciej Henneberg and colleagues have claimed that LB1 suffered from Down syndrome, and that the remains of other individuals at the Flores site were merely normal modern humans.

[66] The noted physical anthropologist Chris Stringer in 2011 wrote of Homo floresiensis deniers generally, "I think they have damaged their own, and palaeoanthropologist's, reputation.

Brown and Morwood also identified a number of additional, less obvious features that might distinguish LB1 from modern H. sapiens, including the form of the teeth, the absence of a chin, and a lesser torsion in the lower end of the humerus (upper arm bone).

[72] Their short stature was likely due to insular dwarfism, where size decreases as a response to fewer resources in an island ecosystem.

[51] A 2018 study refuted the possibility of Rampasasa pygmies descending from H. floresiensis, concluding that "multiple independent instances of hominin insular dwarfism occurred on Flores".

[74] Aside from smaller body size, the specimens seem to otherwise resemble H. erectus, a species known to have been living in Southeast Asia at times coincident with earlier finds purported to be of H. floresiensis.

The shrugging position would have compensated for the lower range of motion in the arm, allowing for similar maneuverability in the elbows as in modern humans.

They were significantly smaller and more flexible than the carpals of modern humans, lacking contemporary features which evolved at least 800,000 years ago.

[81] The cave yielded over ten thousand stone artefacts, mainly lithic flakes, surprising considering H. floresiensis's small brain.

Similar artefacts are found at the Soa Basin 50 km (31 mi) south, associated with Stegodon and Komodo dragon remains, and are attributed to a likely ancestral population of H.

[1][2][6] Other authors have doubted the extent of hunting of Stegodon by H. floresiensis, noting the rarity of cut marks on remains of Stegodon found at Liang Bua, suggesting that they would have faced intense competition for carcasses with other predators, like the Komodo dragon, the giant stork Leptoptilos robustus, and vultures, and that it was possible that their main prey was instead the giant rats like Papagomys endemic to the island, which are found abundantly at Liang Bua.

[84] During the late Early Pleistocene to Late Pleistocene, and before the arrival of Homo sapiens, Flores exhibited a depauperate ecosystem with relatively few terrestrial vertebrate species, including the extinct dwarf proboscidean (elephant relative) Stegodon florensis;[4] and a variety of rats (Murinae) including small-sized forms like Rattus hainaldi, the Polynesian rat, Paulamys, and Komodomys, the medium-sized Hooijeromys, and giant Papagomys and extinct Spelaeomys, the latter two genera being about the size of rabbits, with body masses of 600–2,500 grams (1.3–5.5 lb).

[85] Also present were the Komodo dragon and another smaller monitor lizard (Varanus hooijeri),[4] with birds including a giant stork (Leptoptilos robustus) and a vulture (Trigonoceps).