Publication Date:
2000-05-12
Description:
Archaeological excavations at the site of Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia have uncovered two partial early Pleistocene hominid crania. The new fossils consist of a relatively complete cranium and a second relatively complete calvaria from the same site and stratigraphic unit that yielded a hominid mandible in 1991. In contrast with the uncertain taxonomic affinity of the mandible, the new fossils are comparable in size and morphology with Homo ergaster from Koobi Fora, Kenya. Paleontological, archaeological, geochronological, and paleomagnetic data from Dmanisi all indicate an earliest Pleistocene age of about 1.7 million years ago, supporting correlation of the new specimens with the Koobi Fora fossils. The Dmanisi fossils, in contrast with Pleistocene hominids from Western Europe and Eastern Asia, show clear African affinity and may represent the species that first migrated out of Africa.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Gabunia, L -- Vekua, A -- Lordkipanidze, D -- Swisher, C C 3rd -- Ferring, R -- Justus, A -- Nioradze, M -- Tvalchrelidze, M -- Anton, S C -- Bosinski, G -- Joris, O -- Lumley, M A -- Majsuradze, G -- Mouskhelishvili, A -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2000 May 12;288(5468):1019-25.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Republic of Georgia National Academy of Sciences, Tbilisi, 380007, Republic of Georgia.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10807567" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Africa
;
Animals
;
Asia
;
Emigration and Immigration
;
Europe
;
Female
;
*Fossils
;
Geologic Sediments
;
Georgia (Republic)
;
History, Ancient
;
*Hominidae/anatomy & histology/classification
;
Humans
;
Male
;
Paleodontology
;
Skull/*anatomy & histology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
