Scientists Find Remains of Hobbit-Like Creatures

Have scientists in Australia found hobbits?

The chance discovery of an enormous chamber beneath the Indonesian cave where hobbit-like creatures were discovered promises to settle the debate about who — or what — the tiny creatures were.

Scientists are confident the mystery will be solved if they can extract DNA from "hobbit" remains they expect to find among the rubble of 32,000- to 80,000-year-old bones and stone tools littering the cavern floor.

"Well, well, well, well, well; this will settle the matter," said Colin Groves, a physical anthropologist at the Australian National University in Canberra.

He said obtaining a "CSI"-style DNA profile of the three-foot-tall creatures — tentatively named Homo floresiensis — would prove conclusively if they were members of a new human species, as their discoverers claimed, or deformed modern people, as alleged by skeptics.

The original hobbit remains, found four years ago, have so far failed to yield any DNA.

Scientist have prepared a computer generated image of what the creatures might have looked like: