• PROGRAMME
• SYNOPSES

Little People of Flores

1. Original Title: Little People of Flores
2. Director: Robert Krulwich
3. Editor: Win Rosenfeld
4. Music: Rob Morsberger
5. Producer: Vincent Liota
6. Production: Nova
7. Executive Producer: Samuel Fine
8. USA
9. 15 min.
10. 2005

This documentary on the “Little People of Flores” tells about the amazing discovery of a three-feet tall adult human skeleton in the Liang Bua cave, on the Indonesian island of Flores.
When the first skeleton of Homo floresiensis was found, some scientists claimed it belonged to a new species. Others sticked to the idea that it was still Homo sapiens – a modern man suffering from a growth defect. Both parties produced evidence to support their viewpoints, and the debate stalled for some time. Later, however, nine more very short skeletons were found, thereby substantiating the idea that Homo floresiensis might be a “miniature” species different from Homo sapiens. Evidence shows that, after migrating to remote islands, some animal species can shrink in size over generations, as is the case for hyppos, buffalo, elephants and deer found on faraway islands, which are smaller than their counterparts on dry land.
Homo floresiensis might have survived until 18,000 years ago, living side by side with Homo sapiens on the Indonesian island of Flores for over 30,000 years. Speculations on the IQ of the little people of Flores are still quite difficult to prove. So far, anthropologists have only found one almost whole skull of this species, belonging to a thirty-year old woman. One thing is for sure: her brain is more similar in size to that of a chimpanzee than to the brain of modern humans.
Scientist Bert Robert claims that “the tree of the human species now appears to have many more branches than was originally thought. We tend to think we are at the top of some kind of genealogy, but we are actually just the last surviving branch”.

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