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Dmanisi
Dmanisi, in the Republic of Georgia, lies about 93 km southwest of Tbilisi (see map →). It is the site where a team led by paleoanthropologist David Lordkipanidze discovered the early hominid, Homo georgicus. The history of this village, which was once a town large enough to rate a cathedral, stretches back to the 9th century, but the discovery of its former hominid resident shows the same site was occupied by early humans as much as 1.8 million years ago.
Archaeological surveys of the site began in 1936, prompted by the existence of the ruins of the once much larger city, nearly annihilated by Mongol and Turkoman armies during the 14th and 15th centuries. Initially, archaeologists found many artifacts from the historical period. But, with time, the research focused increasingly on prehistoric remains.
In 1984, Georgian workers discovered crude stone tools of prehistoric origin and the hunt was on to find fossils of the people who had made them. Scientists from other countries flocked to the site.
In 1991, human fossils did in fact come to light. They have since been assigned to Homo georgicus. In the years since, four different skeletons have since been found and dated to approximately 1.8 mya. Homo georgicus is therefore one of the oldest hominids found outside Africa.
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