individual, LB15. Stone implements of a size considered appropriate to these small humans are also widely present in the cave. The implements are at horizons initially dated to 95,000 to 13,000 years ago. Modern humans reached the region by around 50,000 years ago, by which time H. floresiensis is thought to have gone extinct. Comparisons of the stone artifacts with those made by modern humans in East Timor indicate many technological similarities. Scandal over specimen damage The fossils are property of the Indonesian state. In early December 2004, Indonesian paleoanthropologist Teuku Jacob removed most of the remains from their repository, Jakarta's National Research Centre of Archaeology, without the permission of one of the institute's directors, Raden Panji Soejono, and kept them for three months. Professor Richard Roberts of the University of Wollongong in Australia and other anthropologists expressed the fear that important scientific evidence would be sequestered by a small group of scientists who neither allowed access by other scientists nor published their own research. Jacob returned the remains on 23 February 2005 with portions severely damaged and missing two leg bones. Press reports thus described the condition of the returned remains: "[including] long, deep cuts marking the lower edge of the Hobbit's jaw on both sides, said to be caused by a knife used to cut away the rubber mould ... the chin of a second Hobbit jaw was snapped off and glued back together. Whoever was responsible misaligned the pieces and put them at an incorrect angle ... The pelvis was smashed, destroying details that reveal body shape, gait and evolutionary history.", causing the discovery team leader Morwood to remark, "It's sickening; Jacob was greedy and acted totally irresponsibly." Jacob, however, denied any wrongdoing. He stated that the damages occurred during transport from Yogyakarta back to Jakarta despite the claimed physical evidence that the jawbone had been broken while making a mould of the bones. In 2005, Indonesian officials forbade access to the cave. Some news media, such as the BBC, expressed the opinion that the restriction was to protect Jacob, who was considered "Indonesia's king of palaeoanthropology", from being proven wrong. Scientists were allowed to return to the cave in 2007, shortly after Jacob's death. Classification Phylogeny The discoverers proposed that a variety of features, both primitive and derived, identify these individuals as belonging to a new species, Homo floresiensis. Based on previous date estimates, the discoverers