18,000 YA. The Homo floresiensis skull (Flores Skull LB1) was discovered by P. Brown and his team on the island of Flores, Indonesia, in 2003 and reported in Nature in 2004.
A skeleton of this species, which has been designated as female because of the characteristics of the pelvis, shows that in maturity she was only about 3.3 feet tall with a small cranial capacity of only 380 cc.
Another Homo species in existence only 18,000 YA could be one of the most important discoveries in decades.
Stone tools and evidence of butchery were also found at this site.
H. floresiensis is the subject of much debate centering on whether it is a new human species, a pathological H. sapiens, or a case of insular dwarfism of a small H. erectus population.
