Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 108, Issue 26, Pages 10432-10436Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1106638108
Keywords
Lower Paleolithic; paleoanthropology
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [BCS-0324567, BCS-1025245]
- L. S. B. Leakey Foundation
- Georgian National Science Foundation
- Rolex Award for Enterprise, BP Georgia
- Fundacion Duques de Soria
- Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [GENCAT09-324, MICIN09-7986]
- Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- ICREA Funding Source: Custom
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie [917739] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie [1019408, 1025245] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The early Pleistocene colonization of temperate Eurasia by Homo erectus was not only a significant biogeographic event but also a major evolutionary threshold. Dmanisi's rich collection of hominin fossils, revealing a population that was small-brained with both primitive and derived skeletal traits, has been dated to the earliest Upper Matuyama chron (ca. 1.77 Ma). Here we present archaeological and geologic evidence that push back Dmanisi's first occupations to shortly after 1.85 Ma and document repeated use of the site over the last half of the Olduvai subchron, 1.85-1.78 Ma. These discoveries show that the southern Caucasus was occupied repeatedly before Dmanisi's hominin fossil assemblage accumulated, strengthening the probability that this was part of a core area for the colonization of Eurasia. The secure age for Dmanisi's first occupations reveals that Eurasia was probably occupied before Homo erectus appears in the East African fossil record.
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