Was Homo habilis a member of our homo genus?

In several posts I had suggested that it was possible that Homo habilis was the first hominin to leave Africa and reach Eurasia. Following some authors, I wondered if they were related to the Flores Island Hobbits, as posited by Arguea et al., 2017. But, as research advances, new analysis appears and definitions shift, possibly an earlier hominin left Africa for Asia (see my post on Australopiths in Dmanisi Georgia). However, Homo habilis have always intrigued me, as they are the first, and oldest members of our Homo genus, and their name, Habilis, is a Latin word that means "skilfull", the first in our lineage to make stone tools (Oldowan, which look like chopped pebbles or cobbles).

Recently, new research has looked into Homo habilis, trying to understand its place in the hominin tree. This post looks into two new papers published last January, on Homo habilis, and their status in our family tree.

The first one is Tattersall, I. (2026). An identity for the inscrutable Homo habilis. The Anatomical Record, 309(3), 546–549. https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.70145, published on Jan. 24, 2026. Tattersall suggests that this hominin was the outcme of Leakey grouping together an assortment of bones and proclaiming they were the first stone tool makers back in 1964. At that time human-like attributes were linked to cognition, and therefore stone tools were an indicator of brainier hominins, hence it was included in the Homo genus, unlike the more primitive Australopithecines. Tattersall says that "This motley assortment is notably varied in morphology, age, and body parts represented, and it gives Homo habilis a suspiciously heterogeneous and long-lived hypodigm (approximately 2.8–1.6 Ma)... Homo habilis emerges as a relatively diminutive early hominin toolmaker that possessed a remarkably archaic upper body skeleton and was presumably a significant interactor in the woodlands and bushlands of what are now Tanzania and Kenya (and maybe of Ethiopia too) during the period centering around 1.8–2.0 Ma. "

Are they Homo?

Tattersall suggests these remains of H. habilis are not actually Homo, as they have much smaller bodies than the erectus, who are genuine Homo, and have longer arms that seem adapted to living among trees, he does not classify them as Australopiths either, he suggests a new placement outside of the Homo branch:

"On the basis of the limited material known, the habilis fossils from Olduvai and Ileret fail to qualify as Homo... That exclusion contrasts starkly with the very morphologically distinct and only slightly younger Turkana materials, such as the skeleton WT 15000 and the cranium ER 3733, that are often assigned to Homo ergaster... Homo erectus africanus.
But does this necessarily mean that the relatively diminutive ER 64060/1 individual, with its postcanine megadonty and elongated arms, should be classified as Australopithecus? Of course not. It just means that it is excluded from Homo, although not necessarily from the larger Homo clade that findings at sites such as Ethiopia's Ledi-Geraru (Villmoare et al., 2015, 2025) suggest may already have been diversifying, in parallel to the australopith one, as early as around 3 Ma"

Small, slender, and adapted to trees...

The second paper written by Grine, F. E., Yang, D., Hammond, A. S., Jungers, W. L., Lague, M. R., Mongle, C. S., Pearson, O. M., Leakey, M. G., & Leakey, L. N. (2026). New partial skeleton of Homo habilis from the upper Burgi Member, Koobi Fora Formation, Ileret, Kenya. The Anatomical Record, 309(3), 485–545. https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.70100, published on Jan 13. 2026, is more forgiving (it was also cited by Tattersall). The paper focuses on a thorough analysis of the remains of a specimen known as KNM-ER 64061 from Koobi Fora (2.02–2.06 Ma), a Homo habilis.

This individual was tiny, and had less body mass than the erectus it weighed 30.7–32.7 kg (67.7-72.1 lbs) and 1.6 m tall (5.25 ft), though they try to avoid the issue, the authors recognize adaptations that imply an arboreal lifestyle:

"As a consequence of these various uncertainties and concerns, we are hesitant to infer specific behavioral repertoires for KNM-ER 64061 as an individual or for H. habilis as a species. Thus, features of the OH 7 hand (phalanges with a thicker palmar cortex and proximal and intermediate phalanges with high relative bending strengths) may be related to arboreality in H. habilis, but they may equally represent the condition inherited from a phylogenetic precursor of H. habilis that was more arboreal. Similarly, the relatively long forearm of H. habilis may have enabled a greater degree of arboreal locomotion in this species than in H. erectus, but whether arboreality was indeed practiced by H. habilis must remain a matter of speculation."

H. habilis and H. naledi

Homo habilis predates Homo erectus but both species probably overlapped for 500,000 years in East Africa, which reveals different types of archaic humans living in the same region at the same time. They also probably co-existed with the archaic-looking Homo naledi (Lee R Berger, John Hawks, Paul HGM Dirks, Marina Elliott, Eric M Roberts, 2017) which was dated to the very recent age of ~250 ky in South Africa.

This paper proposes that H. naledi with its mossaic of archaic and some (few) modern features, could be located in the Homo habilis branch of hominins: "Phylogenetic scenarios for H. naledi place its origin either: (1) somewhere among the poorly resolved branches leading to H. habilis, H. rudolfensis, H. floresiensis and Au. sediba (Berger et al., 2015; Dembo et al., 2016); Thackeray, 2015): (2) as a sister to H. erectus and larger-brained Homo including H. sapiens (Dembo et al., 2016); or (3) as a sister to a clade including H. sapiens, H. antecessor, and other archaic humans (Dembo et al., 2016) (Figure 2). Maximum parsimony analysis of a large dataset of cranial and dental traits supports scenario 1, placing H. naledi among the most basal nodes of the Homo phylogeny."

H. naledi, with a brain one-third the size of ours (and said to bury its dead and engage in rock art!!) is a controversial hominin. It seems to have existed between ~2.50 to 0.23 My ago, co-existing with the common ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans and H. sapiens, and also with the first humans, overlapping with us in South Africa. A second paper by Hawks et al, also from 2017, described the site where they were found, in South Africa, and includes the following image which I adapted from Fig. 36 in Hawks et al., 2017. A picture is worth more than 1,000 words. As you can see, the H. naledi and H. habilis (and A. sediba) are all very similar and different to the Homo erectus skulls, but the H. Naledi is 300 ky old, while the H. habilis ones are over 1.8 million years (My) old, and A. sediba is roughly 2 My old.

Comparison of skulls ancient hominins. Adapted from Fig. 36 Hawkes et al., 2017

The primitive looking naledi and habilis fossils have shorter and smaller skulls with a slanted face and tend to group together in their appearance. The H. erectus are larger, and have bigger brains and elongated skulls. They are the "real" first homo people. However, if the Dmanisi people were Australopiths, then, we should not underestimate the abilities of those that preceded the homo lineage. Perhaps they too, with crude stone tools could have moved across Eurasia and, reached Sunda, Southeast Asia and Eastern Asia over 2 My ago. Are the tiny trolls, gnomes, and elves of our mythology the memory of Australopiths or Homo habilis encountered by modern humans on their trek across Eurasia and America?

Since 1959, but more recently Plummer et al., 2023, and Mongle et al., 2025 suggest that the East Africa Paranthropus boisei, a sister hominin related to ours, was capable of flaking stones with an Oldowan technology, 2.5 to 3 My ago: "These fossils suggest that P. boisei was capable of tool making and use in some capacity." So, toolmaking is not exclusive to our homo lineage.

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

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 ©