The new skull found at DmanisiGEORGIAN NATIONAL MUSEUMScientists have unearthed the first ever completely preserved skull of an adult hominin from the Paleolithic era—spanning approximately 2.6 million to 10,000 years ago. The specimen, described in a paper published online today (October 17) in Science, together with other skull specimens found at the same site in Dmanisi, Georgia, indicate that the early evolving lineage of Homo was still relatively primitive when it left Africa, and also that it exhibited considerable variation between members of the same species.
“This is going to be a classic paper in paleoanthropology,” said Tim White, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the work. “The reason for that is not so much the cranium itself . . . but rather the entire package of evidence from this locality,” he said. The new skull is clearly the cherry on the cake, however, because it is “spectacularly complete,” said White. “It’s an amazing skull,” added Robert Foley, a professor of human evolution at the University of Cambridge, who also was not involved in the work. “Just a fantastic specimen.”
The jaw of the skull was found in 2000. Its matching cranium was discovered five years later. It was easy to tell the parts ...
