A 1.8 million-year-old skull found at the rich Dmanisi site in Georgia has shaken the world of paleontology. According to paleoanthropologists at the University of Zurich (Switzerland), these remains suggest that the first members of the genus Homo that lived at the same time in Asia and Africa ( Homo habilis and Homo erectus ) actually belonged to the same species.
D4500, as the skull and its jaw are technically known (D2600) are the first found and fully preserved pieces of the skull of an adult hominid that inhabited the area in the early Pleistocene, about 1.8 million years ago. The volume of the skull (important to know the size of the brain) was about 546 cubic centimeters ( today’s Homo sapiens have a capacity of about 1,400 cubic centimeters) and its face was elongated. These data coincide with the morphology of other fossil Homo species found in Africa, which would imply ” the existence of a single evolutionary lineage of the first Homo, with phylogeographic continuity on all continents “, the researchers explain in the scientific article that appeared in the journal Science. .
Basically, what paleontologists propose is that what usually appeared divided, ‘ Homo habilis ‘, ‘ Homo rudolfensis ‘ or ‘ Homo erectus ‘, be considered a single species . This classification would include as ‘ Homo erectus ‘ the fossil remains discovered in Africa in the 60s dated 2.4 million years ago as well as those found in Europe and Asia dated between 1.7 and 1.2 million years ago.
Some researchers have shown their disagreement with the conclusions of the controversial article pointing out that “they go beyond what is reasonable.” In any case, the finding reopens a debate that will require more conclusive evidence and a greater paleontological and geological study to reach a scientific quorum about.
