{"id":227099,"date":"2025-12-14T05:03:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T11:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/the-hobbits-mysteriously-disappeared-50000-years-ago-our-new-study-reveals-what-happened-to-their-home"},"modified":"2025-12-14T05:03:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T11:03:14","slug":"the-hobbits-mysteriously-disappeared-50000-years-ago-our-new-study-reveals-what-happened-to-their-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/the-hobbits-mysteriously-disappeared-50000-years-ago-our-new-study-reveals-what-happened-to-their-home","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018hobbits\u2019 mysteriously disappeared 50,000 years ago. Our new study reveals what happened to their home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-hobbits-mysteriously-disappeared-50000-years-ago-our-new-study-reveals-what-happened-to-their-home2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>About 50,000 years ago, humanity lost one of its last surviving hominin cousins, Homo floresiensis (also known as \u201cthe hobbit\u201d thanks to its small stature). The cause of its disappearance, after more than a million years living on the isolated volcanic island of Flores, Indonesia, has been a longstanding mystery.<\/p>\n<p>Now, new evidence suggests a period of extreme drought starting about 61,000 years ago may have contributed to the hobbits\u2019 disappearance.<\/p>\n<p>Our new study, <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s43247-025-02961-3\" target=\"_blank\">published today in <i>Communications Earth &amp; Environment<\/i><\/a>, reveals a story of ecological boom and bust. We\u2019ve compiled the most detailed climate record to date for the site where these ancient hominins once lived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About 50,000 years ago, humanity lost one of its last surviving hominin cousins, Homo floresiensis (also known as \u201cthe hobbit\u201d thanks to its small stature). The cause of its disappearance, after more than a million years living on the isolated volcanic island of Flores, Indonesia, has been a longstanding mystery. Now, new evidence suggests a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[493],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climatology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}