The morphological description of the dental remains from the Early Paleolithic site of Dmanisi (Georgia)

Abstract

The early Paleolithic site of Dmanisi was discovered in 1983, situated in the environs of the medieval town of Dmanisi, placed on the promontory formed by the confluence of the Mashavera and Pinezauri rivers (Gabunia et.al., 2000). The main objective of the study was to perform the morphological description of the complete inventory of Dmanisi hominin dental remains, as it had never been done before. This would help to characterize morphologically dentition of the Dmanisi hominins and make a general comparison with other hominin dentitions to deepen the knowledge of their taxonomic and phylogenetic status. Analyses showed that Dmanisi hominins are morphologically closer to the African Plio-Pleistocene hominids than to the other representatives out of Africa and they share both traits - primitive and derived ones, but the primitive features are in majority. These hominin fossils represent the first evidence of human presence out of Africa, yielding an age of 1.77 m.a. (Gabunia and Vekua, 1995).