Decryption – Tools of stones over 1 million years old discovered on the island of Sulawesi prove that human groups have been able to cross the seas in this region of the world.
Straight out of the imagination of the British novelist J. R. R. Tolkien, the “hobbits” may have a reality that their inventor did not suspect. Between 700,000 years ago and 50,000 years, small human groups populated the island of Flores, in Indonesia. A new archaeological discovery a few kilometers away, on the island of Sulawesi, comes to expand the mystery that surrounds them. Stone tools over 1 million years old betray the presence of human groups while no land pathway allowed themselves to go there (Nature August 6, 2025) . This suggests that these individuals may know how to navigate and had conquered the whole archipelago.
In all, seven tools were discovered in the south of the island of Sulawesi, not far from the Walanae river. They are accompanied by a mandible of large prehistoric pigs (CeleBochoerus Heekeni). “We have almost certainty that the site was a place of cutting and manufacturing …