How does one transport a 1.8 million-year-old skull that might rewrite the history of mankind and has never before left the vault of the National Historic Museum in Tbilisi, Georgia? Very carefully, of course! The only person allowed to travel with the The 'Dmanisi Skull' - which suggests a Eurasian chapter in the long evolutionary story of man - is Professor David Lordkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum who brought the extra-ordinary find to the Naturalis Museum, Leiden for a special exhibition to end their one-year celebration of evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin.
The book of human history will need a slight redraft, if a remarkable claim by a prominent Georgian anthropologist and archaeologist – on the basis of human remains recently excavated at a site not far from the Georgian capital Tbilisi – is true.
Dmanisi is a small town and archaeological site in Mashavera river valley of Georgia, 93 kilometres south-west of the Georgian capital Tbilisi. It is best known for the discovery, between 1991 and 2007, of various bones and skulls which - aged 1.8 million years - are believed to be the oldest human remains ever found outside of Africa, and evidence of a evolutionary precursor to Homo erectus. They have seen Dmanisi and Georgia labelled the "cradle of European civilization" by David Lordkipanidze, the anthropologist and archaeologist leading the research there.
Various other ancient and medieval artefacts have also been found at the site over the years, as well as some ruins and structures dating from throughout Dmanisi's long history. These include animal bones identified by the Georgian paleontologist A. Vekua in 1983 as being teeth from the extinct rhino Dicerorhinus etruscus etruscus.
Anthropologist, Archaeologist and Director General of the Georgian National Museum
5 August 1963
David Lordkipanidze is a leading anthropolgist and archaeologist, a Professor at Tbilisi State University and the Director General of the Georgian National Museum. He is best known for his discovery of 1.8 million year-old human bones at Dmanisi in Georgia in 2007 which are thought to be the oldest human remains ever discovered outside of Africa, and evidence of a Eurasian precursor to Homo erectus.
Lordkipanidze graduated from the Faculty of Geography at Tbilisi State University in 1985, then went on to attain his PhD at the same institution in 1992. He has since authored over 100 publications on a variety of subjects, from anthropology to paleoecology, hominid evolution and archaeology, and one a number of prestigious awards, including Georgia's Order of Honour in 2000, the Award of the Prince of Monaco in 2001, the French Order of "Palmes Academiques" in 2002 and the French Order of Honour in 2006.
He is a Corresponding Member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. His ground-breaking study of the human fossils at Dmanisi remains ongoing.
How does one transport a 1.8 million-year-old skull that might rewrite the history of mankind and has never before left the vault of the National Historic Museum in Tbilisi, Georgia? Very carefully, of course! The only person allowed to travel with the The 'Dmanisi Skull' - which suggests a Eurasian chapter in the long evolutionary story of man - is Professor 
.jpg "One of the skulls dug up at Dmanisi. Is it evidence of a missing chapter in human history? Picture from Wikimedia Commons.")
