So you think you've heard the last of the supposed hobbits found in Indonesia, eh? Well you're wrong. The debate as to whether or not the found skeletons in a cave are actually from a new species is still very much on. And this time, it looks as if the archaeologists proposing that they are indeed from a different kind has the odds stacked up for them.

Two years after being blocked by the Indonesian government from excavating into the hobbit cave, the team can now resume their study on it. Says Professor Roberts of the University of Wollongong in Australia, "This year, we will be back in Liang Bua again, back in the cave where we found the Hobbits. This is good; we've now managed to get over the political hurdles that had been put up. We'll probably be in there towards the middle of the year."

And this time, it will be more crucial. On their first visit, they found other specimens in the cave, particularly one with an intact skull. They team believed that it is crucial to resolving the question of the Hobbit's classification (Homo floresiensis). Digging in the cave might yield some great surprises that will shed more light as to our human ancestry.

"This particular discovery seems to have prompted people to rethink what it is to be human, the relationship between size and behaviour, and whether hominin populations have been insulated from environmental factors. This indicate that they haven't. It also raises the question about the colonisation capabilities of early hominids. What are they doing on Flores and what are they almost certainly doing on other islands in South-East Asia."

Mike Morwood, director of the excavation, continues on: South-East Asia and East Asia are going to yield an awful lot of surprises and it's going to make a major contribution to our understanding of hominin evolution."

Keep it posted here for more updates on this series.