The appropriately named researcher Dr Debbie Argue argues that Homo floresiensis did not evolve from Homo erectus, and is thus much further back in the evolutionary tree from modern humans than was first assumed.
The Guardian takes up the story:
Researchers who studied the bones of Homo floresiensis, a species of tiny human discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, say their findings should end a popular theory that it evolved from an ancestor of modern humans. (BCar: actually it did, but an earlier ancestor).
The study, led by the Australian National University researcher Dr Debbie Argue from the school of archaeology and anthropology, found there was no evidence the diminutive 1.1-metre-tall Homo floresiensis evolved from the much larger Homo erectus, the only other early hominid known to have lived in the region.
It was one of several theories about the origins of the “hobbit” species. Since it was discovered, researchers have tried to determine whether Homo floresiensis was a species distinct from humans.
Argue was overseas and unavailable to comment but a member of her research team, prof Colin Groves, said the theory of a link with the Asian Homo erectus, the first of our relatives to have modern human proportions, was “a good scientific hypothesis”.
“But we believe it has now been thoroughly refuted,” he told Guardian Australia.
Groves said the researchers had gone into the study of the species with an open mind. But their findings support another popular theory: that Homo floresiensis was in fact far more primitive than Homo erectus and had characteristics more similar to Homo habilis, which lived between 1.65m and 2.4m years ago, and which is the most ancient representative of the human genus.
Full: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/21/hobbit-species-did-not-evolve-from-ancestor-of-modern-humans-research-finds