Publication Date:
2013-10-19
Description:
The site of Dmanisi, Georgia, has yielded an impressive sample of hominid cranial and postcranial remains, documenting the presence of Homo outside Africa around 1.8 million years ago. Here we report on a new cranium from Dmanisi (D4500) that, together with its mandible (D2600), represents the world's first completely preserved adult hominid skull from the early Pleistocene. D4500/D2600 combines a small braincase (546 cubic centimeters) with a large prognathic face and exhibits close morphological affinities with the earliest known Homo fossils from Africa. The Dmanisi sample, which now comprises five crania, provides direct evidence for wide morphological variation within and among early Homo paleodemes. This implies the existence of a single evolving lineage of early Homo, with phylogeographic continuity across continents.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Lordkipanidze, David -- Ponce de Leon, Marcia S -- Margvelashvili, Ann -- Rak, Yoel -- Rightmire, G Philip -- Vekua, Abesalom -- Zollikofer, Christoph P E -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2013 Oct 18;342(6156):326-31. doi: 10.1126/science.1238484.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Georgian National Museum, 3 Purtseladze Street, 0105 Tbilisi, Georgia.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24136960" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Brain/anatomy & histology
;
Dentition
;
Face/*anatomy & histology
;
*Fossils
;
Georgia (Republic)
;
Hominidae/*anatomy & histology/growth & development
;
Humans
;
Organ Size
;
Phylogeography
;
Skull/*anatomy & histology/growth & development
;
Skull Base/anatomy & histology/growth & development
;
Temporal Bone/anatomy & histology/growth & development
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
