[Rumil]

I think the reason that Gollum was described as physically different from the hobbits was that he had been 'warped' by the influence of the ring and had lived long past his 'time'. I'd always imagined that originally he looked the same as any other hobbit.

Concerning evolution, one of the easiest 'changes' which can be achieved by this process is a change in size. In our times we have 'dwarves' who are around hobbit height. You could imagine that a number of 'dwarfish' people could have developed in isolation from the rest of humanity, becoming the seperate people known as the hobbits.

This could have occurred relatively quickly in evolutionary terms. Perhaps the 'fathers and mothers' of the hobbits were excluded from bigoted human societies and forced to live apart from them. Could this have happened during the 'dark years' of the second age?

A similar process seems to have occurred amongst the Dwarves; they excluded the 'petty dwarves' from their society. However, I'm not sure if the petty dwarves were physically any different from the 'real' dwarves, any opinions?