The Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi is holding an exhibition on Stone
Age Georgia from 27 September 2016 to 27 September 2017. The exhibition holds a
range of skeletons and bones found in archaeological sites in Georgia.
Due to its geographic location, Southern Caucasus at the border between
Europe and Asia (Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia) has always been at the
crossroads of cultures. Early humans have repeatedly occupied this area for the
last 2 million years. There are over 500 Paleolithic sites discovered already.
The Stone Age of Georgia exhibition covers the period from 1.77 million to
8 thousand years ago, as well as anthropologial material discovered in other
parts of the world, presenting the timeline of human evolution.
The introductory part of the exhibition presents the paleoenvironments and
the evolution of the land fauna from the late Miocene (8 to 5 million years)
before evidence of the dispersal of the early hominins to Southern Caucasia.
Early human remains (skeletons, bones, and bone fragments) dated to
1,770,000 years ago have been discovered in Dmanisi (in Kvemo Kartli province)
in Georgia. These discoveries include the oldest hominin (early human) fossils
found in Eurasia and represents the first locality of human dispersal out of
Africa.
The Dmanisi hominins contain unique information about the early Homo – early man. Today there are five
crania (skulls), four mandibles (jaws), and over 70 postcranial bones (bones
from below the head) found in Dmanisi. Additionally, the site is extremely rich
in paleonthological artefacts and stone tools.
There are also lots of Paleolithic archaelogical sites dating from 500,000
to 8,000 years ago in Georgia. Material recovered in these archaelogical sites
shows each stage of the stone tool development and reveals human adaptive
processes in the environment, as well as in social structures.
This exhibition presents realistic reconstructions of early hominins and
the Dmanisi paleoenvironment by world-renowned paleoartists, such as Elizabeth
Daynes, John Gurche, Mauricio Anton, and Rodolfo Nogueira.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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