Skull discovered near Armenian-Georgian border may rewrite human evolution

Photo courtesy of Georgian National Museum

A 1.8 million-year-old skull discovered by scientists near the Armenia-Georgia border may rewrite human evolutionary history.

The research article "A Complete Skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the Evolutionary Biology of Early Homo" was used as a source for the New York Times report.

An international team of scientists led by David Lordkipanidze, a a paleoanthropologist at the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi, are behind the findings.

RESEARCH ARTICLE, SCIENCE JOURNAL: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/326

NEW YORK TIMES LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/science/fossil-skull-may-rewrite-humans-evolutionary-story.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&hpw&adxnnlx=1382123470-HSZQdLzAFKcSKClXOIONjQ&

The NYT report by John Noble Wilford says, "The key to this revelation was a cranium excavated in 2005 and known simply as Skull 5, which scientists described as “the world’s first completely preserved adult hominid skull” of such antiquity. Unlike other Homo fossils, it had a number of primitive features: a long, apelike face, large teeth and a tiny braincase, about one-third the size of that of a modern human being. This confirmed that, contrary to some conjecture, early hominids did not need big brains to make their way out of Africa."