A new study concludes that the small ancient humans known as Homo floresiensis on the Indonesian island of Flores scavenged meat from animals killed by Komodo dragons rather than hunting large game or using fire.
Researchers examined thousands of bones from the Liang Bua cave where the hominins lived between 90,000 and 50,000 years ago. They compared marks on Stegodon bones with those from an experiment feeding a goat to a Komodo dragon at Zoo Atlanta.
Cut marks made by the hominins appeared mainly on less desirable parts of the animals, such as cranial bones and thoracic vertebrae. Only one of more than 3,000 Stegodon bones showed signs of exposure to fire.
Elizabeth Veatch of the Smithsonian Institution said the findings confirm that Homo floresiensis did not use fire or hunt big game. Other experts noted that the results align the species more closely with earlier small-bodied hominins.
The study was published in Science Advances.