Those protohumans are generally known as Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus, which apparently evolved into each other in that sequence.
Among the bones of hyenas, elephants, horse and other animals, scientists say they found the remains of nine Neanderthals or neandertalls, a type of primitive human.
So after 33 years, the bacteria in these flasks are generation 74,500. If those were human generations, it would represent 1.5 million years of hominid evolution.
And scientists believe that the bacteria B. bronchiseptica, which infected hominids 2.5 million years ago, may have evolved into the bacteria that is now responsible for whooping cough.
In contrast, most big mammals of Africa and Eurasia survived into modern times, because they had coevolved with protohumans for hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
Scientists do not yet know whether the hobbits shrank from an earlier, taller human species called Homo erectus that lived in the area, or from an even more primitive human ancestor.
Or who first had the idea of arranging them into weeks, so that they no longer flew past, nameless and in no order, as they did for people in prehistoric times?
Africa is the continent where protohumans evolved for the longest time, where anatomically modern humans may also have arisen, and where native diseases like malaria and yellow fever killed European explorers.