During the last glacial period the oceans were several hundred feet lower and this island was much larger.
In fact, all of the area between Australia and the mainland continent may have consisted of a broad savannah or forest, with today's Indonesian islands as mountain ranges..
These hominids may be part of ancestral myths about "little people"..
Contrary to today's Disneyfied portrayal of such characters as cute, shy, freindly and only a bit mischievious, the old tales portray the little people as mean spirited, sadistic, and extremely dangerous..
Oral traditions of survivors from that area's end of the Ice Age and subsequent flooding may have come through to our time..