SCIENTISTS have discovered the fossils of a “hobbit” that lived 700,000 years ago on an Indonesian island.

The homo floresienis were ancient humans that lived between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.

Adults stood just three-and-a-half feet tall and their brains were roughly one-third the size of our own, about the size of a chimpanzee’s.

Because of their miniature size, researchers nicknamed the unusual findings Hobbits.

The discovery consists of just six tiny teeth and a fragment of a small lower jawbone, but researchers say it is enough to suggest the fossils belonged to a direct ancestor of the Hobbits.

One theory states the Hobbits may have arrived on the island from Java after being washed out to sea by a tsunami.

The fossils included some tiny teeth.

Microcephaly and Down syndrome have both been proposed.

However, the new discovery suggests otherwise – hobbits who wound up on the island seemed to defy traditional evolution and growth.