Dmanisi

Dmanisi

დმანისი
Dmanisi დმანისი
Town
	Election administration office
	Dmanisi Location of Dmanisi in Georgia Dmanisi Dmanisi (Kvemo Kartli)
	Coordinates: 41°19′54″N 44°12′13″E / 41.33167°N 44.20361°E
Country	Georgia
Region	Kvemo Kartli
District	Dmanisi
Elevation	1,250 m (4,100 ft)
Population (2024)
• Total	3,050
Time zone	UTC+4 (Georgian Time)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+5

Dmanisi (Georgian: დმანისი, romanized: dmanisi, pronounced [dmanisi], Azerbaijani: Başkeçid) is a town and archaeological site in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia approximately 93 km southwest of the nation’s capital Tbilisi in the river valley of Mashavera. The hominin site is dated to 1.8 million years ago.^[2]^[3]^[4] It was the earliest known evidence of hominins outside Africa before stone tools dated to 2.1 million years were discovered in 2018 in Shangchen, China.^[5]^[6]

A series of skulls which had diverse physical traits, discovered at Dmanisi in the early 2010s, led to the hypothesis that many separate species in the genus Homo were in fact a single lineage.^[7]^[8] Also known as Skull 5, D4500 is the fifth skull to be discovered in Dmanisi.

History

The area around the town of Dmanisi has been settled since the Early Bronze Age. In the 6th century an Orthodox Christian cathedral named "Dmanisi Sioni" was built there. The oldest written record of the town is in the 9th century as a possession of the Arab emirate of Tbilisi. Located on the confluence of trading routes and cultural influences, Dmanisi was particularly important, growing into a major commercial center of medieval Georgia. The town was taken by the Seljuk Turks in the 1080s and by the Georgian kings David the Builder and Demetrios I between 1123 and 1125. The Turco-Mongol armies under Timur laid waste to the town in the 14th century. Sacked again by the Turkomans in 1486, Dmanisi never recovered and declined to a scarcely inhabited village by the 18th century. The castle was controlled by the House of Orbeliani.

Archaeological site

Extensive archaeological studies began in the area in 1936 and continued in the 1960s. Beyond a rich collection of ancient and medieval artifacts and the ruins of various buildings and structures, unique remains of prehistoric animals and humans have been unearthed. Some of the animal bones were identified by the Georgian paleontologist A. Vekua with the teeth of the extinct rhino Dicerorhinus etruscus etruscus in 1983.

This species dates back presumably to the early Pleistocene epoch. The discovery of primitive stone tools in 1984 led to increasing interest to the archaeological site. In 1991, a team of Georgian scholars was joined by the German archaeologists from Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, and later the U.S., French and Spanish researchers.

Homo erectus georgicus

Early human (or hominin) fossils, originally named Homo georgicus and now considered Homo erectus georgicus, were found at Dmanisi between 1991 and 2005. At 1.8 million years old, they are now believed to be a subspecies of Homo erectus and not a separate species of Homo. These fossils represent the earliest known human presence in the Caucasus.

Subsequently, four fossil skeletons were found, showing a species primitive in its skull and upper body but with relatively advanced spines and lower limbs. A 2017 study suggests they represent a stage soon after the transition from Homo habilis to Homo erectus.^[9]

Human habitation in the Caucasus goes back to the remotest antiquity. The hominin remains discovered in 1991 by David Lordkipanidze at Dmanisi, Kvemo Kartli (1.8 million years old) are the oldest found outside Africa.^[10] Neanderthal remains have been found at Ortvale K’lde (1973) and elsewhere in the Caucasus (36,000–50,000 years old).

The Dmanisi hominin remains are still making an impact on the paleontological community. As of 2014^[update] the Dmanisi skull 5 is in the middle of the controversy: many hominin fossils formerly thought to be different species may not have been separate species at all. Several early members of the genus Homo were possibly one evolving lineage.^[11]

Gallery

National Food Agency in Dmanisi
Dmanisi Pentecostal Church
Dmanisi Hospital

References

^ "Population by regions". National Statistics Office of Georgia. Retrieved 29 April 2024.
^ 1.85-1.78 Ma 95% CI. Ferring, R.; Oms, O.; Agusti, J.; Berna, F.; Nioradze, M.; Shelia, T.; Tappen, M.; Vekua, A.; Zhvania, D.; Lordkipanidze, D. (2011). "Earliest human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.85-1.78 Ma". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108 (26): 10432–10436. doi:10.1073/pnas.1106638108. PMC 3127884. PMID 21646521.
^ Garcia, T., Féraud, G., Falguères, C., de Lumley, H., Perrenoud, C., & Lordkipanidze, D. (2010). "Earliest human remains in Eurasia: New 40Ar/39Ar dating of the Dmanisi hominid-bearing levels, Georgia". Quaternary Geochronology, 5(4), 443–451. doi:10.1016/j.quageo.2009.09.012
^ Gabunia, Leo; Vekua, Abesalom; Lordkipanidze, David; Swisher, Carl C.; Ferring, Reid; Justus, Antje; Nioradze, Medea; Tvalchrelidze, Merab; Antón, Susan C.; Bosinski, Gerhard; Jöris, Olaf; Lumley, Marie-A.-de; Majsuradze, Givi; Mouskhelishvili, Aleksander (2000). "Earliest Pleistocene Hominid Cranial Remains from Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia: Taxonomy, Geological Setting, and Age". Science. 288 (5468): 1019–1025. doi:10.1126/science.288.5468.1019. PMID 10807567.
^ Zhu, Zhaoyu; Dennell, Robin; Huang, Weiwen; Wu, Yi; Qiu, Shifan; Yang, Shixia; Rao, Zhiguo; Hou, Yamei; Xie, Jiubing (2018-07-11). "Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago". Nature. 559 (7715): 608–612. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0299-4. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 29995848. S2CID 49670311.
^ Barras, Colin (2018-07-11). "Tools from China are oldest hint of human lineage outside Africa". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-05696-8. ISSN 0028-0836. S2CID 188286436.
^ New Fossil May Trim Branches of Human Evolution Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine, Science Friday, Oct 18, 2013.
^ "Dmanisi Human: Skull from Georgia Implies All Early Homo Species were One | Anthropology | Sci-News.com". Breaking Science News | Sci-News.com. Retrieved 2018-01-30.
^ Rightmire, G. Philip; Ponce de Leon, Marcia; Lordkipanidze, David; Margvelashvilli, Ann; Zollikofer, Christophe (2017). "Skull 5 from Dmanisi: Descriptive anatomy, comparative studies, and evolutionary significance". Journal of Human Evolution. 104: 50–79.
^ (Zatiashvili, 2008)
^ Skull suggests three early human species were one: Nature News & Comment