The Three Out Of Africa Migrations

I came across research by J. H. Relethford, who in a paper published in Nature in 2008 cites Templeton's work about the different expansions of our ancestors out of their African homeland.

The Archaeological Evidence

The fossil evidence shows that H. georgicus and H. erectus lived in Eurasia roughly 1.7 million years ago, and that there were different hominins in that region since then. The remains of H. heidelbergensis, Neanderthals and Denisovans also show evolution and possibly other out of Africa events around 600 ky ago. Finally our own branch, H. sapiens left Africa possibly twice, an early, "failed" migration around 250-100 ky ago and the final move that established modern humans around the world ~60 ky ago. At least, that is the official account.

The Genetic Confirmation

What is interesting is that genetic analysis done by Templeton confirms these dates. Again, I wonder if this fit between the data in the genes and the bones and stones is real, or was somehow eased with the foreknowledge of what had to be confirmed...

Below Is what Relethford wrote, including his citation of Templeton:

"The most comprehensive of these analyses has been performed by Templeton (2005, 2007) who examined 25 DNA regions: mtDNA, Y chromosome DNA, 11 X-linked markers and 12 autosomal markers using a 6-Myr-old date for the human–chimpanzee divergence for calibration. Using a method known as nested-clade phylogeographic analysis, Templeton found that 15 of these markers showed evidence of geographic expansion. The estimated ages of range expansion vary significantly across these markers and do not fit a model of a single expansion, but instead cluster into three groups: (1) an expansion out of Africa 1.9 Myr ago (95% CI=0.99–3.10 Myr), (2) an expansion out of Africa 650 000 years ago (95% CI=390 000–970 000 years ago) and (3) an expansion out of Africa 130 000 years ago (95% CI=9600–169 000 years ago)."

These three events coincide with the H. georgicus and H. erectus, the Neanderthal, and the H. sapiens migrations! I find the confidence intervals rather large (0.9 to 3.1 million years for erectus, 390-970 ky for Neanderthals and 9.6 to 169 ky for us). Such large intervals reveal a high uncertainty in the statistical analysis.

Is this a Coincidence? or do genetics and hard archaeology agree with solid evidence?

Relethford warns that: "Given the large confidence intervals typical of coalescent analysis, this correspondence should be taken as suggestive and not conclusive, but the apparent congruence of the fossil and genetic records is interesting and deserves continued attention, particularly as data on more low-recombination DNA regions become available."

Note that word of caution about Templeton's findings. John Henry Relethford originally was a staunch supporter of the Multiregionalism theory (humans evolved in parallel in the Old World and intermingled) and rejected the initial Out of Africa theory which suggested a total replacement of other hominins by modern humans as they marched across Eurasia, wiping them out. He later shifted to a compromise theory (Mostly Out of Africa) where there was an interplay between African H. sapiens and the hominins in Eurasia. He was concerned with the fate of these Eurasian people.

Alan Templeton on the other hand adopted a rigid position against the replacement Out of Africa theory, criticizing it. His papers reflect this (see above), and he continued with another paper in 2013, and again in 2023, supporting his point of view.

Templeton wrote a very interesting critique about some statistical tools, and admixture trees, which will be the subject of a future post.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by Austin Whittall © 

Asian evolution of Hominins (2024 paper)

Today's post shares a paper on the dispersal and evolution of hominins in Eastern and Southeastern Asia. It has plenty of interesting insights on the time line and geographic dispersal of our ancient ancestors in Asia.

The paper is the following: Rikai Sawafuji, Takumi Tsutaya, Naoyuki Takahata, Mikkel Winther Pedersen, Hajime Ishida, (2024). East and Southeast Asian hominin dispersal and evolution: A review. Quaternary Science Reviews. Volume 333, 1 June 2024, 108669. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108669.

It summarizes current knowledge, and theories, as well as suggesting some future research avenues. A very good paper!

I enjoyed the description of Homo erectus. This hominin has always fascinated me since I was a teen, when I read about it in my elder sister's highschool biology book (no internet in the 1970s). At that time there was the Peking Man, and the Java Man from Solo Rivr, and no African erectus. I also read about the Rhodesia Man, Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, and the Australopithecines in Africa, more primitive and smaller. It seemed a complex mixture of different people. Now, over 50 years later, the panorama is still obscure!

"There are various views on the classification of H. erectus, e.g., H. erectus from Africa as a separate species called H. ergaster (Tattersall et al., 2015). In this review, we use the broader definition of H. erectus (H. erectus sensu lato) and consider the African H. erectus as part of the same taxon.
H. erectus is currently recognized as the first hominin to spread out of Africa and is thought to have migrated eastward across Eurasia and then southward into Southeast Asia. The fossil records are concentrated in Europe, China, and Java, with little data available for the intermediate areas.
Some of the earliest probable fossils of H. erectus are the ∼2.04 Ma cranium found at Drimolen, South Africa (Herries et al., 2020) and ∼2 Ma mandible at Melka Kunture, Ethiopia (Mussi et al., 2023), while the earliest generally accepted evidence of their presence out of Africa was discovered at Dmanisi, Georgia, and dated to ∼1.8 Ma (Ferring et al., 2011; Lordkipanidze et al., 2013).
In China, recent findings have suggested an earlier hominin presence although the evidence is scarce and primarily based on stone tools found at Shangchen, dated to ∼2.1 Ma (Zhu et al., 2018), and on hominin teeth dated between 2.42–1.8 Ma at Jianshi-Longgu Cave (Li et al., 2017a). These findings, which might predate the Dmanisi fossils, suggest the intriguing possibility that either H. erectus or another hominin arrived in China earlier than the time of Dmanisi (Cartmill and Smith, 2022). However, due to the scarcity of comprehensive fossil records, these conclusions must be approached with caution, as definitive identification of these early hominins in China remains challenging.
Fossils and lithics of likely H. erectus found in China include ∼1.66 Ma stone tools from Majuangou III in the Nihewan Basin (Zhu et al., 2004) and 1.7–1.6 Ma stone tools from Shangshazui (Ao et al., 2013), and a ∼1.63 Ma cranium from Lantian-Gongwangling, near Shang Chen (Zhu et al., 2015). Two ∼1.7 Ma incisors have also been found in Yuanmou, South China (Zhu et al., 2008), though their age determination remains questioned (Bae, 2010). Taken together with the fossil and lithic evidence, the conservative age of the emergence of H. erectus in China is about 1.7–1.6 Ma."

The interesting part is the suggrestion of hominin presence in China ~2.4 to 2.1 Ma, older than the earliest South African fossils (~2.04 Ma), also that they were not Homo erectus but "...another hominin arrived in China earlier than ... Dmanisi." This could imply the presence of Homo habilis or even Australopithecines in Asia.

The following image shows how the different lineages of hominins coexisted in Asia during the past 2 million years.

Chronology of the genus Homo in EA/SEA.. Source

The image below shows the distribution of hominins in Eastern and Southeastern Asia/p>.

The Story and Timeline of Hominins in Asia

The paper gives a brilliant description of the dispersal of hominins in East Asia and Southeast Asia.

"As more and more pieces are continuously added to our understanding of hominins, their geographical distribution and persistence, new questions arise, and details about how the different hominins dispersed and why they went extinct still remain unclear. From current fossil records and genetic evidence, one plausible and coherent scenario of hominin dispersal is the following: H. erectus emerged in Africa and expanded into the Eurasian continent around 2 Ma, later occupying Europe, East Asia (China) and Southeast Asia (Java).
Subsequently, the common ancestor of H. sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans split into two groups: one was in Africa (later leading to H. sapiens) and the other settled around the Middle East at some point. The latter interbred with a super-archaic hominin group (possibly H. erectus) around 700–600 ka.
The Eurasian hominin group then split into two groups. One settled in the West (Europe and Western Asia) leading to Neanderthals, while the other settled in Asia leading to Denisovans. Denisovans interbred with H. erectus in Eurasia, occupying their niche. At some point, Denisovans also expanded into East and Southeast Asia, where the groups diverged into different subgroups (D0, D1, D2, D3, the details are in the chapter of Denisovans). Meanwhile, H. erectus may have become extinct around 400 ka in East Asia and 100 ka in Southeast Asia. Denisovans reached the Altai region, eventually meeting and interbreeding with Neanderthals several times around 140–80 ka. Meanwhile, some H. sapiens left Africa before 200 ka. This initial migration was unsuccessful, but interbreeding with Neanderthals at this time left traces in their genome (Peyrégne et al., 2023). There were several subsequent out-of-Africa events, which might have reached Asia, but the populations that led to our ancestors left Africa around 55 ka. They interbred with Neanderthals in West Asia and with Denisovans in EA/SEA. Note that we consider the super-archaic hominin contributing to the Denisovan genome to be H. erectus. While there is a possibility that hominins other than H. erectus and Denisovans migrated into Asia or evolved from H. erectus, this is not considered here due to the lack of evidence."

The suggestion that (no date given for this event) the ancestor of modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans moved out of Africa, settled in the Middle East and some 700-600 ya mating there with H. erectus is very interesting!

The further admixing of Denisovans with erectus as they moved across Eurasia is not often mentioned. And the final comment that "... there is a possibility that hominins other than H. erectus... migrated into Asia or evolved from H. erectus," is worth exploring as there is no evidence to prove it happened. But, it is possible and likely.

The paper also has some interesting comments on the four lineages of Denisovans (with a neat map), and their history:

Denisovans

"The common ancestor of Denisovans and Neanderthals which occupied around the Middle East interbred with a super-archaic hominin, and afterwards the Denisovan ancestors diverged from the Neanderthal ancestral group and moved into Asia. Some of them spread towards Papua and settled in Island Southeast Asia (D1). Another group remained in South or Southeast Asia (D2), and from there, another group moved further north into East Asia (D0, D3). During the early phase of this migration, they encountered a super-archaic hominin population and interbred. The D0 group settled somewhere in East Asia. The D3 group reached the Altai in Siberia (D3), where they met and interbred with Neanderthals."

The section dedicated to small-sized hominins Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis is great, I learned that the latter's "finger and toe bones are elongated and curved, a feature similar to australopithecines". Nevertheless, evidence suggests both "tiny" hominins may descend from H. erectus.

Ancient Mariners

It is remarkable that these two groups of people (and a third responsible for stone tools found in Sulawesi) crossed open sea, settled in islands, and lived there in isolation until their demise when modern humans reachd the area. Navigating abilities is something seldom discussed in any paper, including this one, which only says "Although it is unclear how each hominin crossed the sea, they succeeded intentionally or accidently"

It is evident that even archaic forms of hominins like erectus crossed open sea. Could they have reached America? (See my post about their navigating skills, and this post on Neanderthal "sailors").

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Australopiths and Homo may have coexisted in Dmanisi 1.8 My ago

The Dmanisi site in Georgia, in the Caucasus region has produced many fossil remains whose exact position in our ancestral tree is still being debated. These are the oldest hominin remains discovered out of Africa, and reveal that our ancestors left Africa as soon as they could.

A paper published on Dec. 3, 2025 (Nery V, Neves W, Valota L, Hubbe M (2025) Testing the taxonomy of Dmanisi hominin fossils through dental crown area. PLoS One 20(12): e0336484. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0336484) studied the teeth of the Dmanisi hominin remains (H. Georgicus), and suggests that more than one species of hominins lived in Dmanisi, Georgia.

After analyzing teeth shapes the authors found that one specimen (D4500-D2600) shows strong affinities with australopiths, while others (D2282-D211 and D2700-D2735) are associated to Homo species. Based on this the paper suggests that "two distinct taxa coexist[ed] at the Dmanisi site, previously proposed to be Homo georgicus and Homo caucasi."

This conclusion has interesting implications regarding the first Out Of Africa migrations which until now have been attributed to our ancient ancestor, Homo erectus. The authors of this paper state the following:

"Although our analyses did not formally test the phylogenetic history of the Pleistocene Georgian hominins, the proposal of more than one species in the Dmanisi fossil assemblage has implications for the dispersal of the genus Homo out of Africa in the beginning of the Pleistocene. It is traditionally accepted that the Homo erectus migration started in Kenya (Turkana) around 1.89 Ma, reached Georgia (Dmanisi) around 1.77 Ma, continued into eastern Eurasia (Yuanmou) around 1.7 Ma, and finally arrived to Indonesia (Sangiran) by ~1.57 Ma. However, the speciation events that led to the evolution of more than one species in Dmanisi requires that lineages were separated for long periods after leaving Africa, and were likely also evolving in response to different selective environments.
...
If the Dmanisi specimens cannot be taxonomically grouped with Homo erectus, it raises the possibility that early Homo evolution had multiple episodes of cladogenesis, where some of them may have started in Africa, and others outside Africa. Of particular interest to this discussion is the high similarity between the D4500-D2600 specimen and australopiths, which suggests either a retention of the ancestral dental proportions of australopiths in Dmanisi, or an evolutionary convergence after the initial differentiation of early Homo. With the evidence available, it is not possible to properly evaluate if Homo georgicus and Homo caucasi evolved from Homo erectus ancestors, or if they evolved from australopith-like ancestors, but alternative scenarios are worth exploring and considering as new early Homo fossils are discovered in Asia."

The paper also mentions evidence of an earlier expansion out of Africa, signalled by more primitive stone technology, the Oldowan, which is older than the Acheulean tool kit of the H. erectus: "Recent discoveries of Oldowan tools and associated cut marks in Jordan and Romania, respectively, predate the arrival of Homo erectus to these regions, offering further support for the presence of earlier hominin species in the north of or even outside of Africa [16,56,57]"

The citations 16, 56, and 57 are the following:

16.Neves W, Senger MH, Valota L, Hubbe M. Revisiting the cranial variability of the Dmanisi hominins. Anthropol Rev. 2024;87(2):113–25.

56.Parenti F, Varejao FG, Scardia G, Okumura M, Araujo A, Ferreira Guedes CC, et al. The Oldowan of Zarqa Valley, Northern Jordan. J Paleolit Archaeol. 2024;7(1):3.

57.Curran SC, Dragusin V, Pobiner B, Pante M, Hellstrom J, Woodhead J, et al. Hominin presence in Eurasia by at least 1.95 million years ago. Nat Commun. 2025;16(1):836. pmid:39833162

Consequences of Australopithecines in Georgia

An earlier presence of archaic Australopith hominins in Eurasia opens the door to the evolution (outside of Africa) of Homo erectus there from an earlier wave who peopled the area. H. erectus probably originated in Eurasia and later moved "into Africa", as well as moving "around Eurasia", possibly following the steps of these Australopithecines (why would they have only trekked to Georgia? They could have even reached East Asia or Sunda, Sahul... and America). If the Australopiths were part of the first migration out of Africa, maybe 2 Million years ago, it opens up many new, unexpected options for the peopling of the world, and the origin of "Homo".

My previous posts on Dmanisi and H. Georgicus:

The First Asians were not H. erectus

Homo habilis left Africa 2.4 million years ago

H. erectus in Georgia 1.8 Ma (Kvemo Orozmani site). Aug. 2025 discovery

Homo georgicus revisited: An ancient peopling of Eurasia

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

H. erectus in Georgia 1.8 Ma (Kvemo Orozmani site). Aug. 2025 discovery

After my recent post on Homo georgicus and the Dmanisi site in Georgia, eastern Europe. I read about other sites in the area, and learned that in the Georgian village of Orozmani, roughly 13 km (8 miles) from Dmainsi, two remarkable discoveries had been made: in 2021 a tooth was found, and in July of 2025, a 1.8-million-year-old jawbone was dug up, it belongs to Homo erectus. (Source.)

Africa, West Eurasia and Dmanisi, Georgia map. A. Whittall © 2025

The map above gives some perspective. The distance, in a straight line, from the closest point of Africa to Dmanisi (Suez Canal), and the site in Dmanisi is 1,600 km, or 1,000 miles. These people moved all the way from the alleged cradle of mankind in Turkana, Kenya, and Olduvai in Tanzania, to Sinai to bridge the Red Sea (2,900 km - 1,800 mi.) and then enter an unknown territory to trek another 1,600 km - 1,000 miles north into the Caucasus Region.

Implications

In what is now Georgia (Dmanisi and Kvemo Orozmani) these hominins could have evolved becoming H. erectus. Erectus later moved west deeper into Asia (where we find them in Indonesia and China), and being the top hominins of their era, they also surely back-migrated into Africa, where they evolved into H. heidelbergensis / rhodesiensis, from which our Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestors arose, leaving Africa for a second time. Those remaining in Africa evolved into archaic African sapiens ancestors. Perhaps, at the same time, the Asian erectus in the Far Eastern parts of Asia evolved into the archaic sapiens that the Chinese have been uncovering there.

The Papers on the Orozmani site

There is only one paper on this site and most of the information comes from the media reporting the findings. Apparently an international team of reasearchers from different European countries have been digging here since 2021. That year stone tools and the bones of animals hade been discovered and dated to a similar age to the nearby Dmanisi site (1.77 to 1.84 million years). The tooth has not yet been associated with any hominin. The jawbone from the summer of 2025 seems to belong to a H. erectus. See this media news release.

The only reference I have found (Google Scholar and combing the Internet) is this one:
Bidzinashvili, G., Chagelashvili, R., Coil, R., Kopaliani, G., Martkoplishvili, I., & Vanishvili, N. (2023). Kvemo Orozmani, Georgia: a new Lower Paleolithic archaeological site in the Southern Caucasus. Paper presented at Paleoanthropology Society Meetings, Portland, Oregon, United States.
Its abstract is the given below. Note that this paper dates back to March 2023, and is reporting the first findings, not the jawbone.

"The Southern Caucasus represent one of the hubs for the earliest range expansions of hominins during the Early Pleistocene, as evidenced by the extensive archaeological site at Dmanisi, Georgia. Here, we present findings from a new Lower Paleolithic archaeological site in Georgia: Kvemo Orozmani, which is located approximately twenty kilometers west of Dmanisi. Previous dating and analyses of phytoliths and sedimentology correlated the Kvemo Orozmani and nearby Zemo Orozmani sequences to the Dmanisi stratigraphy, indicating roughly contemporaneous localities (Messager et al., 2011). A recent revisit to the Kvemo Orozmani profile revealed Oldowan-like stone artifacts along with faunal remains. Subsequent excavations began in 2020 and have produced more lithic artifacts, faunal remains from numerous carnivores and ungulates, and a hominin tooth. The latter find doubles the number of hominin-bearing Early Pleistocene localities in the Southern Caucasus and offers potential insights into the hominin populations who expanded into this region. Here, we present our initial findings on site formation, archaeology, taphonomy, and paleontology and how this site fits into the greater context of the earliest hominin expansions into Eurasia."

Interestingly it mentions "Oldowan-like stone artifacts" which are pre-Homo erectus, the erectus people developed the Acheulean lithic techology, Oldowan is associated with H. habilis, though a recent study published this year suggest that another group of hominins, the Paranthropus boisei, could have used Oldowan techniques around 2.8 million years ago.

Another online link in Research Gate is the following (Kvemo Orozmani, Georgia: a new Lower Paleolithic archaeological site in the Southern Caucasus): A pdf with images, maps and little text. It has the same title, but seems like a presentation of the paper, not the paper itself. It includes the tooth, coprolites, and the tools. The following map is from this pdf.

Kvemo Orozmani and Dmanisi, Georgia map. From Bidzinashvili, G. et al. 2023.

It also includes images of their stone tools, which look very primitive, almost geofacts. Clearly Oldowan and not the Acehulean tools of H. erectus. As mentioned further up, Oldowan means primitive hominins, like H. habilis, Paranthroupus and also, some australopithecus. The image below is from the same 2023 paper.

Now we will have to wait for the publication on this 2025 jaw discovery and for the identification of the hominin that provided the tooth.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

On the origin of Homo Floresiensis, the "Hobbit"

I had imagined that the Flores Island small-bodied people descended from some ancient wave of Asians. My expectations were that they preceded H. erectus and were linked to the first people to leave Africa, H. georgicus or even H. habilis. Now we have some proof that they derive from Homo erectus.

A paper published ten years ago (Kaifu Y, Kono RT, Sutikna T, Saptomo EW, Jatmiko, Due Awe R (2015) Unique Dental Morphology of Homo floresiensis and Its Evolutionary Implications. PLoS ONE 10(11): e0141614. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141614) found that tooth morphology placed the hobbit closer to H. erectus than to modern sapiens or older hominins like habilis:

"This evidence contradicts the earlier claim of an entirely modern human-like dental morphology of H. floresiensis, while at the same time does not support the hypothesis that H. floresiensis originated from a much older H. habilis or Australopithecus-like small-brained hominin species currently unknown in the Asian fossil record. These results are however consistent with the alternative hypothesis that H. floresiensis derived from an earlier Asian Homo erectus population and experienced substantial body and brain size dwarfism in an isolated insular setting. The dentition of H. floresiensis is not a simple, scaled-down version of earlier hominins. "

A more recent paper (Kaifu, Y., Kurniawan, I., Mizushima, S. et al. Early evolution of small body size in Homo floresiensis. Nat Commun 15, 6381 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-50649-7) published in August 2024 states thtat H. floresiensis descends from dwarfedH. erectus and not from older and less evolved ancestors like the Australopithecines or H. habilis. It reaches these conclusions after studying bone sizes and molar features. It also gives a timeline for their settling in Flores Island:

"Coupled with the recently revised arrival date for H. erectus on Java ( ~ 1.1 Ma, or at most younger than 1.3–1.5 Ma) and hominins on Flores (1.0–1.27 Ma), as well as the reported craniometric and odontometric analyzes which almost unanimously support strong affinities of H. floresiensis with H. erectus (particularly early H. erectus from Java), the following evolutionary model emerges. The earliest Flores hominins appeared on this Wallacean island ~1.0–1.27 Ma, probably unintentionally (i.e., through accidental ‘rafting’, perhaps on tsunami debris), and possibly as part of the initial colonization of the Sunda Shelf region by early H. erectus. The Flores hominins experienced substantial body size reduction soon after this event (within ~300,000 years), despite the presence of large-bodied predators such as ~3 meter-long Komodo monitors and crocodiles from the earliest paleontological record ( ~ 1.4 Ma) onwards6. This implies that giant reptilians did not represent a serious predation threat for early H. floresiensis or its progenitors. This early evolutionary event was followed by long-term stability in hominin body size, possibly also in cultural adaptations (e.g., stone technology), and minor morphological specialization in the dentition. How the small brain size reported for the ~60,000 years old LB11, evolved still remains unknown. At present, however, the available fossil data imply that small body size had been a functional adaptation for these insular hominins during and slightly beyond the Middle Pleistocene and indeed potentially up until the arrival of H. sapiens on Flores around 50,000 years ago; an event that, we suspect, precipitated the demise of H. floresiensis."

Perhaps the minute humans of Luzon share the same origin.

I doubt that these small people ever moved out of their islands, so there is no way that they could have reached the New World to inspire myths about dwarves. However, they could have left an imprint in the legends and tales of the Southeast Asians who came across them in the jungles of Sahul and Sundaland 50,000 years ago. Myths that were taken by humans and spread across the World.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Homo georgicus revisited: An ancient peopling of Eurasia

The first hominins to leave Africa were discovered in Georgia, in the Caucasus. A paper published in March 2025 suggests that not all the remains of found in the cave in Georgia belong to this Homo georgicus species, and tries to place these specimens on the hominin phylogenetic tree.

I have posted on H. georgicus in 2011 and 2019. But science advances and new discoveries arise so it is time to take another look at Georgicus.

Source: Where do the Dmanisi hominins fit on the human evolutionary tree? Debbie Argue, José María Bermúdez de Castro, Michael S. Y. Lee, Maria Martinón-Torres bioRxiv 2025.03.01.639363; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.01.639363

I quote part of their paper below.

"Conclusions
The Dmanisi hominins are often included in H. erectus or H. erectus s. l. /H. ergaster, notwithstanding that they are formally designated as Homo georgicus with D4500_D2600 as the holotype. In our phylogenetic analyses, none of the Dmanisi hominins form a sister taxon to either H. erectus or H. ergaster. We hypothesise that the Dmanisi hominins did not share a unique common ancestor with H. erectus or H. ergaster, and we cannot support their attribution to either of those species.
Although all the Dmanisi hominins are attributed to a single species, the morphological variation evident among them has prompted questions about their heterogeneity with discussion focusing on whether one species or two are represented. We approached this question using phylogenetic analyses and by exploring further lines of evidence. Although our phylogenetic analyses did not lead us to propose two species among the Dmanisi hominins, there are nevertheless morphologically significant differences in the cranium, mandible and dentition of the individual represented by D4500_D2600 and the other Dmanisi hominins that are consistent with the view that D4500_D2600 represents a separate species. These are the unique and perplexing pattern of sexual dimorphism evident in the endocranial capacities of the assemblage when considered as one species; the dichotomy in mandibular molar size sequences; and in the presence of both a primitive and a derived form in the mandibular structures among the assemblage. We also note that D4500_D2600, in terms of character distances, is more similar to other hominins, including H. floresiensis, than it is to the other Dmanisi individuals.
We propose that the most parsimonious hypothesis for the Dmanisi hominins is that two species are present among the assemblage: Homo georgicus comprising D4500_D2600 and an un-named species comprising the other Dmanisi hominins: D2280, D2282_D211, D2700_D2735 and D3444_ D3900. The alternative hypothesis, that the assemblage comprises a single species, requires substantial paradigm shifts in our definition of Homo.
We surmise that the first hominin species at Dmanisi was H. georgicus, and that the species was probably present by 1.8 Ma. The other hominins, D2280, D2282_D211, D2700_D2735 and D3444_ D3900, accumulated at some time or times during the reverse polarity of 1.07 Ma and 1.77 Ma.
The specific ages of D2280, D2282_D211, D2700_D2735 and D3444_ D3900, however, remain unknown. Dating of the volcanic ashes in which each hominin was recovered, together with dating the ashes in the overlying strata to find the minimum date for the hominins, would likely produce a more refined understanding of the chronology for the Dmanisi hominins."

The link to the Flores Island hobbit is interesting, and also the lack of relationship with H. erectus and H. ergaster. Who, as we see below are more recent. The phylogenetic trees in the paper suggest that H. georgicus is on a branch that split earlier from the one leading to H. habilis, H. erectus, H. ergaster, and H. sapiens. Pictured below

Fig 1. Tree H. georgicus and other hominins.

Ancient Hominins in Eurasia

Georgicus was the first early hominin to be discovered in Eurasia, and older than the H. erectus remains found in Indonesia and China. They were the first to venture out of Africa.

But Georgicus wasn't alone in Eurasia. There are many sites around 2 million years old. Some of them have hominin remains associated to them, others have tools or bones suggesting human action on them. See this paper published in Nature in January 2025 as an example. It includes the following image with ancient sites and what markers were used to identify hominin presence (Fig. 5). Note that the other "oldest" remains found are H. erectus, suggesting that Georgicus came first.

So, which ancient hominin left Africa? Was it H. georgicus if he appeared in Africa and migrated to the Caucasus, or even more primitive australopithecines that evolved into H. georgicus in Asia?

Ferring et al. (2011) suggested that Georgicus predates H. erectus in Africa: "Dmanisi's first occupations to shortly after 1.85 Ma and document repeated use of the site over the last half of the Olduvai subchron, 1.85–1.78 Ma. These discoveries show that the southern Caucasus was occupied repeatedly before Dmanisi's hominin fossil assemblage accumulated, strengthening the probability that this was part of a core area for the colonization of Eurasia. The secure age for Dmanisi's first occupations reveals that Eurasia was probably occupied before Homo erectus appears in the East African fossil record."

Argue et al. confirm it with their phylogenetic trees. Homo georgicus was not a subspecies of erectus, it was located on a branch that split from some common ancestor of Homo habilis and later H. erectus.

Did a back-migration into Africa of the Georgicus hominins lead to the appearance of H. habilis there? In that case it would be an In &: Out of Eurasia-Africa that led to more evolved hominins.

Further studies will provide additional information.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©