Paige Madison

PAIGE MADISON, an independent scholar, Bozeman, Montana, was awarded a Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship to aid research and writing on “Hobbits and Human Origins: How Tiny Fossils Raised Big Questions About Who We Are.” How have scientists come to understand humans’ evolutionary past through fossils — the fragmentary remains of our history? This fellowship supported the preparation of a book examining the process of science through the story of the world’s smallest human relatives, the species Homo floresiensis. For over a decade, the bones known as H. floresiensis, or the “Hobbit,” have been at the center of a controversy, declared the most important find of a lifetime by some and dismissed as a pathological mistake by others. Integrating anthropological subfields critical to the H. floresiensis saga from zooarchaeology to ancient DNA research to biological anthropology, the work reveals how the H. floresiensis consensus came to instigate a radical shift in our understanding of our evolutionary story, including the diversity of our own genus, the genus Homo. Using the Hobbit’s story to take a broader view of how the science has defined intelligence, survival, and migration in our evolutionary history, this book speaks to a public audience about our evolving understandings of the meaning of “human,” as well as our place as the only surviving species of a once diverse human family. Scribner Press will publish the book in Spring 2026.