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RE: Whither the Flores Hobbit of Indonesia? A new Study Hints at Evolutionary Pressures for Insular Dwarfism...even for people
Interesting, it's quite fascinating because i'm from Indonesia myself. The dwarfism is quite extreme there, i wonder what factors are contributing a lot, my first guess would probably be a lack of food, but no conclusive proofs yet sadly
There are probably two things going on here.
The first is, as you said, nutrition is a problem and probably 'fixable' over time. Remember, it used to be Americans were giants @176 cm in China 100 years ago. Not so much anymore. In time, as Indonesia's economy improves, people will grow in height. At least most will.
There are some that are genetically smaller. The island dwarfism appears to be case where people who are smaller in restricted environments, normally islands, have an advantage over the larger folk: they need less food and their children need less per child. That increases the chance a child will grow to adulthood and have more kids. This leaves a permanent genetic change and their descendants will be like this. This happens for most large mammals. There had been a massive debate over whether or not it also applied to people. The answer is, yes. Yes, it does.
100,000 years ago, the world was far more like the Lord of the Rings. There were many kinds of humans and our relatives. The Denisovans, Neandertals, modern humans, Hobbits, Red Deer Cave People (China), Homo heidelbergensis, probably some pockets of Homo erectus, and possibly hominins we haven't and may never find. The question becomes, why are we the only ones left?