Scientists have discovered a new and tiny species of human that lived in Indonesia at the same time our own ancestors were colonising the world. The new species - dubbed "the Hobbit" due to its small size - lived on Flores island until at least 12,000 years ago.
The fact that little people feature in the legends of modern Flores islanders suggests we might have to take tales of Leprechauns and Yeti more seriously. ... Flores' inhabitants have incredibly detailed legends about the existence of little people on the island they call Ebu Gogo. The islanders describe Ebu Gogo as being about one metre tall, hairy and prone to "murmuring" to each other in some form of language. They were also able to repeat what islanders said to them in a parrot-like fashion.
"There have always been myths about small people - Ireland has its Leprechauns and Australia has the Yowies. I suppose there's some feeling that this is an oral history going back to the survival of these small people into recent times," said co-discoverer Peter Brown, an associate professor of archaeology at New England. ... Henry Gee, senior editor at Nature magazine, ... speculates that species like H.floresiensis might still exist, somewhere in the unexplored tropical forest of Indonesia. (Source )
Cool. You will recall, of course, that the Prologue to the Lord of the Rings implies that Hobbits still live among us, albeit in hiding. So perhaps Mr. Gee is right. On the other hand, perhaps Hobbit evolution in fact continued to its logical conclusion. In either case, please don't tell Chomsky; you know how he gets when it comes to Hobbits.