Posted on 11/18/2007 1:39:39 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
DMANISI, Georgia - The forested bluff that overlooks this sleepy Georgian hamlet seems an unlikely portal into the mysteries surrounding the dawn of man.
Think human evolution, and one conjures up the wind-swept savannas and badlands of east Africa's Great Rift Valley. Georgians may claim their ancestors made Georgia the cradle of wine 8,000 years ago, but the cradle of mankind lies 3,300 miles away, at Tanzania's famed Olduvai Gorge.
But it is here in the verdant uplands of southern Georgia that David Lordkipanidze, a paleoanthropologist, has been unearthing one of the largest and most significant troves of prehistoric human fossils ever found outside of the Great Rift Valley. In doing so, his work has begun to
change fundamental beliefs about human evolution, and about early man's migration out of Africa.
Lordkipanidze's latest findings, partial skeletons 1.77 million years old and described in Nature magazine this fall, paint a portrait of small-framed early humans with primitive brains but longer, more human-like legs, well-suited for long-distance walking.
Why they left Africa remains a mystery. But the Dmanisi fossils provide ample evidence that when mankind's ancestors did leave Africa, they first trekked through the Fertile Crescent and made their way to the lush highlands at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains.
"The Dmanisi fossils are no doubt the earliest hominid fossils in Europe," Lordkipanidze said. "They are
the first immigrants. They could be ancestors for any European or Asian population."
(Excerpt) Read more at presstelegram.com ...
fyi
Freaking illegals..ship em back....
Meadow Muffin
Amazing just what they can deduce from fossil fragments, isn’t it?
They can probably even determine their names and political affiliations!
oh that was bob...he got lost when we were going to Atlantis, via ancient caravan.
Atlantis of the deep....Atlanta Georgia....oops!
Sorry for the confusion
Mr Caveman
Image: JOHN GURCHE PORTRAIT OF A PIONEER With a brain half the size of a modern one and a brow reminiscent of Homo habilis, this hominid is one of the most primitive members of our genus on record. Paleoartist John Gurche reconstructed this 1.75-million-year-old explorer from a nearly complete teenage H. erectus skull and associated mandible found in Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia. The background figures derive from two partial crania recovered at the site.
I was taught that the Caucasus is the boundary between Europe and Asia. If this is correct, Georgia is in Asia.
BTW, the archaeologist who unearthed the ‘Hobbits’ on the Indonesian Island of Flores compares some of the fossil features to these Georgia skeletons closer to those of the Hobbits than all other humans.
Why it is assumed that they must have originated in Africa is the deeper mystery.
The evolution of the earth has been a dynamic process, with at least seven supercontinents which have been determined. When, in this billions-of-years process man emerged is still unknown. The best we can do is say that the oldest (presumed) human ancestors discovered to date were found in Africa's rift valley.
That is not the same as saying that man's ancestors definitely originated there. Early American cultures have played musical chairs as to origins for at least 30,000 years.
Assumed theories are discarded and new ones created all the time.
If the actual origin of man has long disappeared into a subduction zone, the question may never be answered.
-REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
.
-AP Photo/Rob Carr
So how do we know they were “hominid” and not just some kind of ape or monkey?
hey their be signed up to vote for Hillery next year
All of these things (hominids) are monkeys and they’re not related to us in any way, shape, or manner.
because the theory requires it.....
Sorry, that happens not to be the case.
He might have come from outer space.
Thanks.
“because the theory requires it.....”
:)
Georgiamus Crackermus
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