Skull Finds Challenge Theories Of Human Colonisation New
discoveries in Eurasia are challenging old beliefs that homo
sapiens evolved solely on the African continent. Scientists have
found a few 1.8 million years old skulls in Dmanisi, a medieval
village near Tblisi in Georgia. The skulls are the oldest
remains ever found outside Africa, and they suggest humans left
Africa much earlier than previously believed. The bone fragments
and skulls are more primitive than Homo erectus, which was
previously thought to have been the first hominins to have left
Africa, around 1 million years ago. Scientists now believe the
hominins found in Georgia may be the ancesters of Homo erectus,
and probably migrated back to Africa after a long period in
Eurasia. The only human fossil to predate the Dmanisi specimens
are of an archaic species Homo habilis, or "handy man", found
only in Africa, which used simple stone tools and lived between
about 2.5 million and 1.6 million years ago.