Anthropologists unearthed the skull at a site in Dmanisi, a small town in southern Georgia, where other remains of human ancestors, simple stone tools and long-extinct animals have been dated to 1.8m years old.
Experts believe the skull is one of the most important fossil finds to date, but it has proved as controversial as it is stunning. Analysis of the skull and other remains at Dmanisi suggests that scientists have been too ready to name separate species of human ancestors in Africa. Many of those species may now have to be wiped from the textbooks, due to the fact that buried together were skulls that reflected characteristics of Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, and Homo Rudolfensis.
The latest fossil is the only intact skull ever found of a human ancestor that lived in the early Pleistocene, when our predecessors first walked out of Africa. The skull adds to a haul of bones recovered from Dmanisi that belong to five individuals, most likely an elderly male, two other adult males, a young female and a juvenile of unknown sex.
So now kimi's commentary... This homo erectus example also has anthropologists wondering. Why? Because one of the skulls shows a grown person, with no teeth, but with smooth sockets, filled in by bone. In other words, he looked about 40 years old and seems to have lived about two more years after all his teeth fell out... Am impossibility they say? Maybe his companion helped him, chewed his food for him? What a wonderful thought to see the first signs of human caring.
Georgians are famous for their hospitality. They say it may be because they were invaded so often that they just learned to be nice to everyone? But maybe this 1.8 million year old example shows they were a caring people a long time ago!
I will be getting my permanent assignment soon, and visiting the site, a month before we finally move there. Wish me luck!
Kim dixoni
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/17/skull-homo-erectus-human-evolution. For more info.
