Straight out of “Lord of the Rings,” a joint team of Australian and Indonesian archeologists discovered the remains of what is believed to be an extinct species of hobbits. Nine separate sets of human remains were found at the site on the island of Flores, Indonesia. With the scientific name of Homo-floresiensis, they were found to be around 3.3 feet high and 55 pounds when fully grown.
They have also been shown to inhibit the island of Flores as recently as 13,000 years ago. This discovery was very surprised at the time and was dubbed the most spectacular finding in paleoanthropology in over 50 years.
Alien-like Skulls
In 1999, skulls that looked very alien-like were found in a small Mexican village. 25 human skeletons were found, but 13 of those had skulls that were very similar to how we now see aliens from movies. Don't get too excited — these skeletons were not from aliens but were indeed from humans.
The long elongated skulls from these were probably a result of a process called cranial elongation. It was commonly done by several cultures all over the world and started around 10,000 years ago. This process commences in childhood when two wooden boards would be used to compress and elongate their skulls.
Nazca Lines
This group of very large writings, or geoglyphs, created between 500 BC to 500 AD, can be found in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They consist of various drawings of animal and plant shapes. A total of 900 of these mysterious drawings have been found in that area. They were first discovered by hikers in 1927 and were observed as a whole from an aircraft in the 1930s.
Researchers are still debating about its true purpose. Some believe that they were based on astronomy and cosmology, while others believed that they were used for religious worship. Then, there is a small group of people who believes that they were created by an advanced alien civilization.
African Spearheads
This discovery was considered to be the oldest known use of sharpened stone-tipped weapons. These weapons were used by a species called Homo heidelbergensis sometime around 500,000 years ago. This discovery came as a shock for archeologists around the world because, at that time, the consensus was that the first use of these weapons was 300,000 years ago.
Spears have been used as far back as five million years ago, not only by human species but also by some species of monkeys. This discovery, however, was the earliest time in history where spears were equipped with sharpened stone tips on the ends.
Piri Reis Map
Archaeologists finding old maps is not entirely new. However, this map from 1513, created by an Ottoman admiral and cartographer named Piri Reis, was shocking the entire archaeological world. That's because the map very accurately shows continents and coastlines that were thought to still be undiscovered at that time.
One example of this is how it has already shown the continent of Antarctica, which was still yet to be discovered in 1818 (more than three centuries later!). Remarkably, the continent of Antarctica that can be seen on this map is how it looked before it was covered in ice!