Interdisciplinary Investigations of the Plio-Pleistocene Occupations at the Dmanisi Site, Republic of Georgia

University Of North Texas, Denton TX

Investigators

Abstract

Located at the nexus of three continents in the Caucasus Mountains, the Dmanisi Site preserves a remarkable record of humans, their lifeways and their environments at the beginning of the Pleistocene, about 1.8 million years ago. This NSF grant will fund excavations at the site in the summers of 2003 and 2004, with an international scientific team representing diverse specialties including human paleontology, archaeology, geology, vertebrate paleontology, soil chemistry, pollen and plant fossil analysis. The excavation crews are an international mix of graduate students. These future professionals are doing and learning paleoanthropology together, building relationships that will define the next generation of scholars of human history. Thus far, five human skulls and many post cranial bones have been recovered by excavation of only a small part of the Dmanisi site. These fossils represent the earliest members of our genus, and are yielding unprecedented insights into the first peoples to inhabit Eurasia. Numerous stone artifacts, in association with the fossils, and similar to the oldest finds in Africa, are being studied to reconstruct the activities and movements of the occupants and even more numerous animal fossils provide evidence of the ecology and the age of the site. Several geologists are also dating the site, using evidence provided by the buried lavas and ashes. Other specialists will acquire data on snails, volcanic ashes, chemical and physical evidence of the humans' diet. The investigations at Dmanisi will be guided by several key research questions: When did the first humans inhabit southern Eurasia? What was their biological and cultural relationship to their older African ancestors? Were these populations significantly different, behaviorally and/or genetically, from their African relatives because of the temperate region they occupied? Does the physical variation in the Dmanisi fossils signify different sexes, different species, or a pattern of variation previously unrecognized? This grant also supports our determined efforts to attain wide distribution of the results of these investigations. Websites will offer popular tours, children's activities and hard scientific data for students and professionals. Accurate and affordable casts of human fossils and artifacts will be made available for schools and museums, and a variety of visual media will be produced in the hopes that this project will send a very interesting story to the lay public, as well as exciting encouragement to many young and future scientists.