An international team of scientists, including the University of Wollongong (UOW), has found compelling evidence that a changing climate played a role in the extinction of the early human species Homo floresiensis, also known as "hobbits." Their research, published in Communications Earth & Environment, reveals the hobbits abandoned Liang Bua—a cave they had occupied for around 140,000 years—during a drought that lasted for thousands of years.