Taking Sides in the Battle of the 'Hobbit'

The battle among paleaoanthropologists over Homo Floresiensis, popularly known as the hobbit, threatens to become an epic of Lord of the Rings proportions.

The debate rages on over whether the fossil, found on the Indonesian island of Flores, is a separate species or simply a modern human with stunted development.

Now Robert Martin at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, US, claims the controversial fossil, discovered in 2004 was really a Stone Age Homo sapiens (modern human) with a mild form of the condition microcephaly. There are more than 400 genetic variants of this disease, which stunts brain development.