Editor's Summary
20 September 2007
Headed for Europe
The primitive hominins from Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia are often thought to be similar to Homo erectus and are arguably the earliest known members of the human family outside Africa. This conclusion has come, so far, from skulls. The discovery of postcranial material — a partial skeleton of an adolescent individual associated with a skull, and remains from three more adults — suggests that the Dmanisi hominids are even more primitive, similar to Homo habilis. In News & Views, Daniel Lieberman draws parallels between these new finds and those from Lake Turkana, Kenya, featured on the cover of the 9 August issue of Nature. Early indications from the similarities between the recent Dmanisi and Turkana finds suggest, says Lieberman, that they belong to the same species.
News and Views: Palaeoanthropology: Homing in on early Homo
Newly described fossils from Georgia in Eurasia and from Kenya shed more light on the earliest members of the genus Homo. These finds indicate that there was considerable variability in their size and shape.
Daniel E. Lieberman
doi:10.1038/449291a
Article: Postcranial evidence from early Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia
David Lordkipanidze, Tea Jashashvili, Abesalom Vekua, Marcia S. Ponce de León, Christoph P. E. Zollikofer, G. Philip Rightmire, Herman Pontzer, Reid Ferring, Oriol Oms, Martha Tappen, Maia Bukhsianidze, Jordi Agusti, Ralf Kahlke, Gocha Kiladze, Bienvenido Martinez-Navarro, Alexander Mouskhelishvili, Medea Nioradze & Lorenzo Rook
doi:10.1038/nature06134
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (409K) | Supplementary information