page_title: Dmanisi hominins
section_title: Early excavations at Dmanisi
hierarchical_section_title: Dmanisi hominins / Taxonomy / Research history / Early excavations at Dmanisi
caption_attribution_description: English: Dmanisi excavation site
context_page_description: The Dmanisi hominins, Dmanisi people or Dmanisi man were a population of Early Pleistocene hominins whose fossils have been recovered at Dmanisi, Georgia. The fossils and stone tools recovered at Dmanisi range in age from 1.85–1.77 million years old, making the Dmanisi hominins the earliest well-dated hominin fossils in Eurasia and the best preserved fossils of early Homo from a single site with a comparable temporal context. Though their precise classification is controversial and disputed, the Dmanisi fossils are highly significant within research on early hominin migrations out of Africa since they represent the oldest fossil record of hominins in western Eurasia. The Dmanisi hominins are known from over a hundred postcranial fossils and five famous well-preserved skulls, referred to as Dmanisi Skulls 1–5.
  Although initially described as a population of the otherwise African species Homo ergaster, or potentially en early offshoot of later Asian H. erectus, the taxonomic status of the Dmanisi hominins is somewhat unclear due to their small brain size, primitive skeletal architecture, and the range of variation exhibited between the skulls.
context_section_description: Dmanisi is located in southern Georgia, about 85 kilometres (52.8 miles) from the country's capital, Tbilisi. It was founded as a city in the Middle Ages and has thus been a site of archaeological interest for some time, with a prominent archaeological excavation site being located within the ruins of the old city on a promontory overlooking the Mashavera and Pinazauri rivers. Archaeological excavations began in 1936 on the initiative of historian Ivane Javakhishvili, who directed several expeditions. In 1982, archaeologists at Dmanisi discovered 3 metre (1 ft) deep pits, cut in compact sandy clay. The archaeologists believed the pits to have been made for some economic purpose in the Middle Ages and after cleaning them out, fossilized animal bones were discovered on the walls and bottom of the pits. The Georgian Paleobiological Institute of the Academy of Sciences was informed immediately and systematic palaeontological excavations began in 1983, but ended in 1991 on account of financial issues.
  During the 1983–1991 excavations, a large amount of animal fossils were collected, alongside some stone tools. The stone tools were quickly noted as highly archaic, far more primitive than other tools found in Eastern Europe. Biostratigraphically (dating through comparisons with fauna at other well-dated sites), the tools and fossils were dated to have been deposited at some point from the Late Pliocene to the Early Pleistocene. New excavations at Dmanisi have been undertaken since 1991, wherein Georgian palaeontologists have been joined by German specialists from the Romano-Germanic Museum in Cologne, Germany. From 1991 to 1999, expeditions were completely funded by the Romano-Germanic Museum and carried out annually.
caption: Excavation site at Dmanisi in 2007
exif: {}