For reasons we don't yet understand, our last known surviving genetic cousin, Homo floresiensis, became extinct 17,000–12,000 years ago. In a bid to unearth what may have gone wrong, PhD student from the Research School of Earth Sciences Nick Scroxton, is descending through the history of Indonesia's rainfall.

Aptly named the Hobbit, Homo floresiensis stands just over a metre tall with a small brain and disproportionately large feet. In 2004, the skeletal remains of the Hobbit were discovered a few hundred metres from Scroxton's field site - a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores.

Scroxton discerns the layers of history from the cave's stalagmites. "The chemical composition of each separate layer is dependent on the chemical composition from the drip waters above. The chemistry of the drip water is dependent on the climate, vegetation and everything else going on above the cave," he explains.

As part of his PhD research Scroxton is looking for signature events that happened within that 17,000–12,000 year time interval, which may have contributed to the Hobbit's extinction. For example, according to Scroxton if there was a really dry period then maybe there was some vegetation or ecosystem collapse.

Only a year and a half into his studies, Scroxton will concurrently produce a monsoonal record of Indonesia spanning 40,000 years. As Scroxton explains, "climate models predicting the future have to be able to get the past right. The more data we have about the past, the better the climate models can predict how the Earth's climate system works."