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 and Lorenzo Rook
Additional contact information
David Lordkipanidze: Georgian National Museum
Tea Jashashvili: Georgian National Museum
Abesalom Vekua: Georgian National Museum
Marcia S. Ponce de León: Anthropologisches Institut, Universität Zürich
Christoph P. E. Zollikofer: Anthropologisches Institut, Universität Zürich
G. Philip Rightmire: Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
Herman Pontzer: Washington University, St Louis, Missouri 63130, USA
Reid Ferring: University of North Texas, Denton, Texas 76203, USA
Oriol Oms: Departament de Geologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Martha Tappen: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
Maia Bukhsianidze: Georgian National Museum
Jordi Agusti: ICREA, Institute of Human Paleoecology, University Rovira i Virgili
Ralf Kahlke: Senckenberg Research Institute
Gocha Kiladze: Georgian National Museum
Bienvenido Martinez-Navarro: ICREA, Institute of Human Paleoecology, University Rovira i Virgili
Alexander Mouskhelishvili: Georgian National Museum
Medea Nioradze: Othar Lordkipanidze Center for Archaeological Research
Lorenzo Rook: Università di Firenze

Nature, 2007, vol. 449, issue 7160, 305-310

Abstract: Abstract The Plio-Pleistocene site of Dmanisi, Georgia, has yielded a rich fossil and archaeological record documenting an early presence of the genus Homo outside Africa. Although the craniomandibular morphology of early Homo is well known as a result of finds from Dmanisi and African localities, data about its postcranial morphology are still relatively scarce. Here we describe newly excavated postcranial material from Dmanisi comprising a partial skeleton of an adolescent individual, associated with skull D2700/D2735, and the remains from three adult individuals. This material shows that the postcranial anatomy of the Dmanisi hominins has a surprising mosaic of primitive and derived features. The primitive features include a small body size, a low encephalization quotient and absence of humeral torsion; the derived features include modern-human-like body proportions and lower limb morphology indicative of the capability for long-distance travel. Thus, the earliest known hominins to have lived outside of Africa in the temperate zones of Eurasia did not yet display the full set of derived skeletal features.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06134 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:449:y:2007:i:7160:d:10.1038_nature06134

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature06134

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().