A scientist clarifies that the Flores skeletal remains called LB1 don't belong to a hobbit.

It's the skeletal remains of a pre-historic human with Down's syndrome.

LB1 was discovered on October 2004 in Flores, Indonesia. At the time, it was called the most important find about human evolution in the last 100 years.

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Robert Eckart, one of the scientists who found LB1, said the skeletal sample from the Liang Bua cave contains fragmentary remains of several pre-historic humans.

When LB1 was found, it only had a skull and thighbones. Since then, scientists haven't found new bones that match LB1.

LB1 has an unusual anatomical features. One is that it has a cranial volume of 380 milliliters, which means it has a brain less than one third the size of an average modern human.

It also had short thighbones, which when reconstructed only stand 3.5 feet tall or 1.06 meters.

Eckard explained that the original figures for cranial volume and stature are underestimates. These measurements are markedly lower than any of the later attempts to confirm them.

He said other researchers have constantly found a cranial volume of about 430 milliliters or 26.2 cubic meters, which is significantly bigger than its initial measurement.

He stressed that the difference is significant and the revised figures falls in the range predicted for a modern human with Down's syndrome from the same geographic region.

He clarified that humans diagnosed with Down' syndrome have short thigh bones.

The original estimated height of the creature was an extrapolation combing the thigh bones with an African pygmy, which is an ethnic group with an average short height.

Eckhardt explained that LB1's short thigh bones match the height reduction seen in a person with Down's syndrome.

He said that when statistically corrected for normal growth, LB1 will have a stature of about 1.26 meters of four feet, which matched some modern humans living on Flores.

Eckard stressed that their analysis shows that LB1 is not an unknown species of humans or a hobbit. LB1 is a person with Down's syndrome, which can occur in one per thousand human births around the world.