Current knowledge about the Dmanisi site (Georgia)

Our excavations of the site of Dmanisi, Georgia, bring new knowledge about evolutionary history of early Homo. Over the past decade, this site has yielded a treasure of a unique series of 1.8 million year old cranial and postcranial hominin fossils. Along with many well-preserved animal fossils and quantities of primitive stone artifacts this is the richest and most complete collection of indisputable early Homo remains from any single site with a comparable stratigraphic context. The discoveries document the first expansions of hominins out of Africa and into Eurasia, and demonstrate that this was neither due to increased brain size, nor to improved technology. Dmanisi re-shaped many hypotheses on early hominin phylogeny, palaeoecology and biogeography. Despite certain anatomical differences between the Dmanisi specimens, we do not presently see sufficient grounds to assign them to more than one hominid taxon. Thus, the Dmanisi assemblage offers a unique opportunity to study variability within an early Homo population the research presented new evidence on the evolutionary biology of early Homo and challenges the existence of different Homo linages in Africa.