Dmanisi, site of paleoanthropological excavations in southern Georgia, where in 1991 a human jaw and teeth showing anatomical similarities to Homo erectus were unearthed.
Dmanisi is the site of a medieval village located about 85 km (53 miles) southwest of Tbilisi on a promontory at the confluence of the Mashavera and Phinezauri rivers. Archaeological exploration of the ruins began in the 1930s, but systematic excavations were not undertaken until the 1980s. Shortly thereafter it became apparent that pits or cellars dating from medieval times had been dug into deposits containing prehistoric animal bones. In addition to the jawbone found in 1991, two skulls were recovered in 1999 exhibiting the relatively small brains, flat foreheads, and low cranial profiles characteristic of H. erectus. Indeed, the fossils are close in their morphology to similarly aged specimens from eastern Africa.
Animal and human bones along with numerous crude stone chopping tools and flakes come from layers of ash and sandy sediment dated radiometrically at 1.85 million years old. Other methods of dating indicate that the mandible and the crania must have washed into the site about 1.7 million years ago. Dmanisi is thus one of the most ancient human habitation sites anywhere in Eurasia, approximately equivalent in age to the oldest H. erectus localities in eastern Africa, which makes the Dmanisi remains crucial in the study of human evolution.
The excavation and analysis of a fully complete hominid skull dated to 1.8 million years ago stirred controversy within the anthropological community in 2013. The skull’s facial features and dentition share several characteristics with H. habilis, and its braincase was shown to have many features also found in H. erectus. The researchers who reported these findings concluded that there was only one lineage of genus Homo that spread from Africa to other continents; their findings suggested, in other words, that the early evolution of Homo (H. habilis, H. erectus, and others) was characterized not by distinct species but by different variations of the same species.