A skull that rewrites the history of man
It has long been agreed that Africa was the sole cradle of human evolution. Then these bones were found in Georgia...
The conventional view of human evolution and how early man colonised the world has been thrown into doubt by a series of stunning palaeontological discoveries suggesting that Africa was not the sole cradle of humankind. Scientists have found a handful of ancient human skulls at an archaeological site two hours from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, that suggest a Eurasian chapter in the long evolutionary story of man.
The skulls, jawbones and fragments of limb bones suggest that our ancient human ancestors migrated out of Africa far earlier than previously thought and spent a long evolutionary interlude in Eurasia – before moving back into Africa to complete the story of man.
Experts believe fossilised bones unearthed at the medieval village of Dmanisi in the foothills of the Caucuses, and dated to about 1.8 million years ago, are the oldest indisputable remains of humans discovered outside of Africa.
But what has really excited the researchers is the discovery that these early humans (or "hominins") are far more primitive-looking than the Homo erectus humans that were, until now, believed to be the first people to migrate out of Africa about 1 million years ago.
The Dmanisi people had brains that were about 40 per cent smaller than those of Homo erectus and they were much shorter in stature than classical H. erectus skeletons, according to Professor David Lordkipanidze, general director of the Georgia National Museum. "Before our findings, the prevailing view was that humans came out of Africa almost 1 million years ago, that they already had sophisticated stone tools, and that their body anatomy was quite advanced in terms of brain capacity and limb proportions. But what we are finding is quite different," Professor Lordkipanidze said.
"The Dmanisi hominins are the earliest representatives of our own genus – Homo – outside Africa, and they represent the most primitive population of the species Homo erectus to date. They might be ancestral to all later Homo erectus populations, which would suggest a Eurasian origin of Homo erectus."
Speaking at the British Science Festival in Guildford, where he gave the British Council lecture, Professor Lordkipanidze raised the prospect that Homo erectus may have evolved in Eurasia from the more primitive-looking Dmanisi population and then migrated back to Africa to eventually give rise to our own species, Homo sapiens – modern man.
"The question is whether Homo erectus originated in Africa or Eurasia, and if in Eurasia, did we have vice-versa migration? This idea looked very stupid a few years ago, but today it seems not so stupid," he told the festival.
The scientists have discovered a total of five skulls and a solitary jawbone. It is clear that they had relatively small brains, almost a third of the size of modern humans. "They are quite small. Their lower limbs are very human and their upper limbs are still quite archaic and they had very primitive stone tools," Professor Lordkipanidze said. "Their brain capacity is about 600 cubic centimetres. The prevailing view before this discovery was that the humans who first left Africa had a brain size of about 1,000 cubic centimetres."
The only human fossil to predate the Dmanisi specimens are of an archaic species Homo habilis, or "handy man", found only in Africa, which used simple stone tools and lived between about 2.5 million and 1.6 million years ago.
"I'd have to say, if we'd found the Dmanisi fossils 40 years ago, they would have been classified as Homo habilis because of the small brain size. Their brow ridges are not as thick as classical Homo erectus, but their teeth are more H. erectus like," Professor Lordkipanidze said. "All these finds show that the ancestors of these people were much more primitive than we thought. I don't think that we were so lucky as to have found the first travellers out of Africa. Georgia is the cradle of the first Europeans, I would say," he told the meeting.
"What we learnt from the Dmanisi fossils is that they are quite small – between 1.44 metres to 1.5 metres tall. What is interesting is that their lower limbs, their tibia bones, are very human-like so it seems they were very good runners," he said.
He added: "In regards to the question of which came first, enlarged brain size or bipedalism, maybe indirectly this information calls us to think that body anatomy was more important than brain size. While the Dmanisi people were almost modern in their body proportions, and were highly efficient walkers and runners, their arms moved in a different way, and their brains were tiny compared to ours.
"Nevertheless, they were sophisticated tool makers with high social and cognitive skills," he told the science festival, which is run by the British Science Association.
One of the five skulls is of a person who lost all his or her teeth during their lifetime but had still survived for many years despite being completely toothless. This suggests some kind of social organisation based on mutual care, Professor Lordkipanidze said.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.
- Print Article
- Email Article
-
Click here for copyright permissions
Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited


Comments
The constant is that we all come from one single mother (DNA tracing of all races around the world shows this). So the question is where did this mother live? Africa, Asia or was the landscape different - were the continents relocated at that time (as another commentator has mentioned)?
Some say (the religious from the Abrahamic religions) that we originate from the Middle East - maybe, one foot in Africa and the other foot in Asia. There is too little information available to know for certain. In the early days of man, the number of humans on earth were very low - so the chances of remains being located are going to be very, very low.
The other complication is that apes will be associated with humans. Finding ancient ape bones will cause links to be make with humans because of close similarities in skeletal structure.
Homo georgicus might well be a remnant population from the early stage of the evolution of Homo erectus from it's habilis ancestor, but it would have to have given rise to Homo erectus much earlier - about 200 000 years at least - than his Dmanisi finds.
Well, what theory did you buy?
All scientist all over the world agree that Africa is the origin of humankind.
They may not agree on the dates, but even in this article Lordkipanidze
points out that Homo erectus migrated 'back' to Africa to spawn the rest of the world
and us (you, me and every other human on the planet.
If you don't 'buy it' where do you propose you originated from?
If you have an alternate theory that defies all the world expert scientists I'd love to hear it.
Please share your expert/scientific findings with the community.
And why emigrate out of Africa and then return to evolve?
I bet they found a cricket bat too.
Its a regular human skull. So they were a bit smaller....ever stand next to someone from Southeast Asia next to someone from Norway?
Darwins's ideas also explain certain facts better than any other explanation we have. Why do you have an appendix, for example, when it's of no use to you but might actually kill you? Why do all marsupials live in Australia and all lemurs in Madagascar?
Anyone who's studied human anatomy knows that your insides are actually a bit of a botched job. For example, some of your nerves connect you up incredibly circuitous routes. You should look at a diagram of the Laryngeal nerve of a giraffe. It's like a botched job by a particularly dodgy mechanic. This is explicable in terms of the random workings of evolution. However the THEORY of "intelligent design" would have to be renamed "dumb design" to explain it.
The method they used to date the skull was probably carbon dating. Have you ever measured a human skull? Do you know what the normal range of dimensions are?
Desparately seeing a conspiracy by politically correct thugs is a new one on me though.
All Homo Sapiens came from a single African Mother.I'm not African...I could'nt care less if my ancestors were African or not....but is interesting how a section of the Western Asians ( call themselves europeans ..thinking they are a continent) & Eastern Asians ( Chinese) love to day dream they are derived from another species...anything but African.
How fragile is an collective ego.
This article only discusses the early family tree of bipedal homonids.Homo-Sapiens ..unfortunately for you...still come from Africa.....sincere commisurations.Hope you get over it.
LOOKS LIKE AN APE TO ME
Evolutionary biologist
Sydney, Australia
Never let the results of careful research taint a good story.
my theory is that people moved about al over the place 1 million yeras ago, right into east asia and indonesia.
i also have a theory from all ther evidence that the hominid bones in australia show that there were two comings of people, one robust and very primitive, the other more gracile with smaller brow ridges.
certainly some people in australian aboriginal areas have extraordinarily large brow ridges and whilst just within the normal human rnage, that would be over many years of inter generational transfer of dna with other more recent arrivals.
not pc to say so, or to discuss kennewick man which shows that the original landowners are actually predated by others from different "tribes" which kinda changes history and ruins the argument of a direct link to the land of the forefathers. the real forefathers are no more, perhaps through war or pestilence or interbreeding.
as for brain capacity, the fact women have smaller cranial capacity to their brains is because they are smaller and does not mean they are less intelligent.
however, on a friday night at the pub when women are discussed i have to say that theory is often put to the test.
Migrations don't really happen overnight so there would likely have been a gradual bleed into new regions and if it happened once, why not again?
If the opportunity arrives, some individuals of a species investigate. I sometimes think that people assume that the pre-humans planned migrations with an end in mind, a map and a compass. It is one of the problems people have with natural selection and evolution, they assume an end is in mind. With geological time it's not needed.
So my words would be that there has probably been an ebb and flow of individuals many times and some of their offspring did the return journey. The migration theory has a lot going for it, and we are simply finding out more and more details. There will probably be other finds in the future enabling us to fill in even more detail
The alternative is the theory of the talking snake and this collapses under mild scientific examination
The genetic evidence suggest we all descend from the seven 'Eves' (seven mothers). Rather than one has one poster claimed.
Disagree with the 7 mothers theory. DNA shows we come from the single ancient mother.
I assume the seven mother allows flexibility and comfort to allow different races. Of course, there is no doubt that the mother will have had seven female siblings (daughters and granddaughters). These seven will still trace back to the single mother.
Palaeoanthropolgy (the study of human fossils) is a difficult science, as there are so few good fossils to work with, and what there are are, as a result, often "overinterpreted", so that small differences that would be within the natural range of variation of other species are sometimes blown up into something much more significant than they are. Unfortunately this seems to be another case in point.
On a few points raised by others here:
Dating: They have presumably been dated using stable isotope dating, which is a well developed and highly accurate technique but which still does give, as pointed out above, large error bars - (ie. it can give an age range, but not an exact date)
Continents: 1.8 million years may sound like a long time, but in the history of the earth (which is 4,000 million years old) it is the blink of an eye - the continents have shifted very little in that time, so Africa and Eurasia were already present in their current positions then.
David - Evolutionary Biologist, Denmark
It is established that Neanderthal man originated in Europe and primates are also found in the wild in Asia.
So it seems to me that it is quite plausible that a similar species of human to Homo erectus evolved elsewhere with very close DNA.
Note the "believe" and "indisputable" in the same sentence.
No wonder the racist slime and creationist nutbags have come out for air.
Can someone help me with my little problem understanding this? With all the physical deformaties and mental impairment resulting from cousin marriages,even more so incest between siblings, how did we ever evolve past a first generation,or were our very first ancestors really very very clever and perfectly formed and we have gone downhill ever since?
I also notice the similarity between so many modern day problem children who grow up without a father and the consant reference to our apparently single mother prime ancestor-she has a lot to answer for!
Ok so here it is. THIS IS OLD NEWS!!! What about "Lucy" pegged at 4million years old. Your own paper headline in "March of 2005 The world's oldest early human skeleton is unearthed in Ethiopia". That one was 3.8 million years old. Stop with this nonsense. You can't tell us every 3 years that YOU have rewritten history (that you wrote) Dummies!