A Million-Year-Old Human Skull Has Led Scientists to Reconsider Early Human Evolution

March 05, 2023

An entire skull of an ancient human progenitor was discovered in 2005 at the archaeological site of Dmanisi, a small town in southern Georgia, Europe. The skull belonged to an extinct hominid 1.85 million years old!

The archaeological specimen, known as Skull 5 or D4500, is completely intact and has a long face, huge teeth and a small braincase. It was one of five ancient hominid skulls discovered at Dmanisi, forcing experts to reconsider the landscape of early human evolution.

“The result provides the first evidence that early Homo consisted of adult people with small brains, but body mass, stature, and limb proportions exceeding the lower limit of modern variation,” write the researchers.

Dmanisi is a village and archaeological site in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia, about 93 kilometers southwest of the country’s capital, Tbilisi, in the Mashavera River valley. The 1.8 million year old hominid site has been discovered.

Many unique species of the genus Homo were thought to be a single lineage when a succession of skulls with diverse physical characteristics were unearthed in Dmanisi in early 2010. Skull 5, also known as “D4500”, is the fifth skull unearthed in Dmanisi .

However, the Dmanisi archaeological site is the oldest hominid site outside Africa, and research of artifacts has revealed that certain hominids, most notably Homo erectus georgicus, left Africa 1.85 million years ago. The five skulls are about the same age.

Although most scientists believe that Skull 5 is a regular form of Homo erectus, human ancestors who lived in Africa during the same period. While some claim it to be Australopithecus sediba, it lived around 1.9 million years ago in what is now South Africa and is believed to be the ancestor of the genus Homo, which includes contemporary humans.

Many scientists have offered countless new possibilities, but we are still deprived of the genuine face of our History.