David Hamlin Producer - National Geographic Television and Film When I got the assignment to make a film on "hobbits" my first reaction was, 'didn't someone just do three of these—and win every Oscar ever invented?' I soon learned my mission wasn't to remake one of the most successful movie franchises of all time. My challenge was much more intimidating: tell the world about one of the most amazing archaeological finds of all time—a three-foot tall race of humans that lived just 18,000 years ago. As I began researching the story, I couldn't believe the legends of little people living alongside us could possibly be true. The industrious dwarves of Scandinavia, the deadly kilyakai of New Guinea, the mischievous Leshy of the Baltic—were these myths based on a race of little people? Indonesian and Australian scientists had discovered fossil remains of tiny human beings buried in a limestone cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, suggesting that these ancient legends may have been rooted in truth. The scientists hadn't come to Flores searching for a race of "mini-mes." They were looking for early Homo sapiens, modern humans like you and me, who led the first migration to Australia. But when they made their discovery, they immediately knew they were onto something far more special. When I flew to Indonesia to film the discovery for National Geographic all the details were secret. The discovery hadn't leaked to the press and the scientists didn't want to break the story of this new human species until they completed their initial research, published it in a journal, and were fully prepared for the media onslaught that was sure to follow. The journey to Flores was an adventure in itself. After three days of plane flights, each plane smaller than the last, the final flight brought us to the island where we jumped into a jeep for a ride into the central highlands. The jeep brought us to the village of Ruteng from where we trekked up a mountain path to the site of the dig: a cave the locals call "Liang Bua" or "Cool Cave." The cave was nestled in the side of a mountain behind a dense curtain of forest. You would never know it was there, but scientists have been coming here for years seeking fossil remains of modern humans. The cave itself is spectacular—it's not terribly deep, maybe only 100 feet, but it has a gaping mouth about 300 feet wide and 50 feet high. Enormous stalactites hang from the ceiling—some of them the size of cars. Inside the cavernous hole, I found our scientists—Australian scientists Mike Morwood and Bert Roberts and Indonesian scientist Thomas Sutikna—hard at work. When these three men began their work none of them had any idea of the magnitude of the discovery that lurked beneath the surface. Mike is the field team leader and has dedicated his career to searching for a path of human origins on the road to Australia. And if you want to learn about Australian pre-history, you have to go through Indonesia. That's what brought him here originally. Bert is the dating expert: he takes samples of dirt and bone and figures out the age of just about everything. Thomas is a native Indonesian and the man who first uncovered the skeleton in 2003. It's only fitting that a native son made this landmark discovery. His eureka moment was quite surreal. He assumed he had unearthed the bones of a young girl. But once they extracted the fossil, they could tell things weren't adding up: certain skull features and other telltale skeletal evidence revealed this mystery skeleton most resembled our ancient ancestors—not a modern human. She was a full-grown adult woman. But she stood just three and a half feet tall. We started working together and the amazing story of this new species began to unfold before the camera. Without giving too much away, I'll just say this is the coolest evolutionary tale you've ever heard. Imagine a race of full-grown humans the size of preschoolers living alongside us for thousands and thousands of years. Mike says "it's been called the most significant discovery in paleoanthropology in the last 60 years. In, this part of the world, the only thing … similar to this was Dubois's original discovery of Homo erectus back in 1890." "Previously you only had …two species of the genus Homo, erectus and sapiens. Now we have another [Homo floresiensis]." So many questions needed to be answered: How did a race of tiny humans evolve? Where did they come from? How long did they survive? Is it possible modern humans actually lived alongside them? And what about their tiny brains? The fossils indicate that these people somehow mastered fire and used sophisticated tools all with a brain the size of a chimp. The National Geographic Society decided to collaborate with the scientists to answer several of these questions, which became pivotal components of our film. First came the question of how anyone originally got to Flores. One hypothesis was that they used rafts. To see whether the idea held water the scientists built a raft-made of materials available one million years ago-and attempted crossing from the island of Sumbawa to the island of Flores. The most remarkable part of the expedition was imagining our ancient ancestors performing this same crossing one million years ago.

One hypothesis was that they used rafts

Then there was the issue of the tiny human's amazing brain. NG called upon one of world's leading paleoneurologists, Dr. Dean Falk of Florida State University and the cutting edge team at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology in St. Louis to perform an unprecedented investigation of the her brain. Finally, what did the she look like? If we could stare into the eyes of our petit cousin, would she look anything like us? The renowned paleo-artist John Gurche was asked to put flesh on the bone of the Homo floresiensis skull and bring to life an ambassador of this species. Gurche is a remarkable hybrid of scientist and artist. He doesn't just lay clay over the skull like an art project, he bases his work on a rigorous and broad understanding of how soft tissues and muscles affix to bone, i.e. a skull. He rigorously tries to make sure his representation of a human being that lived 18,000 years ago is valid. Visiting Flores was an amazing journey back in time to the almost unbelievable world of the little people—a bizarre place and time where evolution had downsized some of her creations like the tiny humans and petit elephants while amplifying others—like the gigantic reptiles. Scientist Bert Roberts was right when he said this world was "the real Jurassic Park." I flew home from Indonesia cradling National Geographic's precious footage. It's still hard to believe I was there, documenting a true story. But those tiny bones didn't lie.