Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Almost everyone seems to be linking to the stories about Homo floresiensis, nicknamed "hobbits" for their size. Meter-tall hominids aren't that weird an idea; they'd fit right in with Lucy over in Olduvai Gorge. But the type specimen is 18,000 years old, and was making sophisticated tools despite a chimpanzee-sized brain.
Nature has several connected articles on the discovery (some of why I can't read because they're reserved for paying subscribers), including an overview from an anthropologist who notes that he'd doubted the earlier claims of Homo erectus fossils in the region and an interview with two of the lead scientists on the project.