370 miles east of Bali lies the island Flores. It was here that scientists discovered the first evidence of human beings that lived at least until 12,000 years ago. That they eixsted at all until such a recent time is staggering, it means that they must have co-existed with 'modern' humans, indeed that very phrase now needs to be re-examined, because these humans co-existed with oursleves. Standing just 3 foot tall, the evidence suggests that they were higly sophisticated, cooked their food, made axe-tools and small delicate artefacts. They appear to have hunted frogs, fish, birds and pygmy elephants as well as giant rats the size of labradrors.

So there's a discovery of a new and recent species of human, so what? After all they're all gone now, it's interesting but just another dead end human like the Neanderthals. Perhaps not. Intriguing tales remain locally that offer the tantalising possibility that these humans may have survived until relatively recently. And perhaps continue to survive today. Local legends tell of a race of cave dwelling people a metre tall, with long arms, pot bellies and big ears. They even have a name for them, they wer known as Ebu Gogo, which means grandmother that eats everything, because of their voracious appetites. They spoke to one another in murmurs and grunts but were still able to repeat verbatim sentences spoken to them by villagers.

Legend has it that the Ebu Gogo and the villagers lived peacably, tolerating the odd raid on their livestock and crops, until one day they stole and eat a baby. Enraged,the villagers smoked them out of their caves and drove them eastwards. They were never heard of again. According to the locals, the last time one was seen coincided with the arrival of Dutch settlers in the 19th century.

Another intriguing link has been made to Gullivers travels, by Jonathon Swift, inferring that these tiny humans inspired his Lilliput. Swift may have based his tale on the journal of Antonio Pigafetta, Magellans secretary and the first European record of journeys throught the archipelago of modern Indonesia. One such entry i8n the journal tells of,

'an island called Archute where the men and women are no taller thana cubit, and have ears so large that of one they make their bed, and with the other they cover themselves.'

The archipelagos of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Phillipines are so vast in number that many have yet to be explored. Plans are now afoot to scour the arhcipelagos for the possibility of finding living hominin species. Along with the spoken legends there's also the observation that although the most recent skeleton has been dated to around 12,000 years ago, this doesn't mean that this was the last living Flores woman. Geologists point out that statistically speaking, they could have well existed way beyond this, to the tune of thousands of years, including the possibility of recent, modern times, confirming the local legends and Pigafetta's journal entry.

There's just one hitch or crimp in the reomantic argument though. Around 12,000 years ago there was a massive volcanic eruption, one of the biggest ever known. Rock was hurled hundreds of miles away, ash fell and covered everything in the Flores vicinity and for many hundreds of miles around, destroying both Flores and ourselves. Humans recolonised, the Flores may well have perished. But what of the legends? What of Pigafettas observations - Magellan's secretary was not given to being a fantasist.

There's a third possibility. The possibility that all of these threads are true and that Flores man is still extinct. For it is possible, that the legends had been handed down, and recanted as though it had happened just a short while ago. People on the fringes that had survived the volcanic disaster may have retained the legends of those that they traded with and intermarried with. Legends are powerful things,and sometimes assume a life of their own, outsurviving civilisations and cultures. Perhaps the claims of recent sightings are nothing more than a story repeated around village fires, stories that adapt themselves to suit the audience, stories that indeed grow with the telling. But the possibility remains, the recent discovery of a new species of lowland gorillas and elephants in the Congo are testament enough that this could be so. Only an estimated 20% of all the earths plants and animals have been catalogued. What is certainly true is that if these exotic hominin species still exist, then they will be found in isolated pockets in areas like the Indonesian archipelago.

And if we do encounter these intelligent cousins, what then? Should we leave them alone? Could we? Perhaps it's time to stop looking for the unlikely bigfoot in the USA and cocentrate on the Smallfeet of Flores man instead.

yechydda,

Additional reporting: Indonesian hobbit legends