Skull and mandibles

Argue confined her cladistic analysis to the skull and mandibles of H. floresiensis and the comparative sample. She compared 40 character states related to the face, basal area of the skull, the dimensions of the back of the skull, and 30 characters of the mandibles of the various species. She is confident of her conclusions.

"If someone had found these skulls in Africa, nobody would have argued they are microcephalic," she says. A lone microcephalic individual from Flores, or even two, would cast doubt upon the claim that H. floresiensis is a new species of Homo.

But the cave on Flores has yielded partial remains of at least two other adults and one child of similar or even smaller proportions.

Argue says stratigraphic and other evidence indicates that they occupied the cave for more than 80,000 years, from about 94,000 years ago until around 12,000 years ago - around the time a major volcanic eruption devastated the island, possibly extinguishing the tiny and extraordinary Floresians.