The hominin dig
Where 1.8-million-year-old skulls emerged.
BRUTE — CC BY 2.0 · Image by Georgia Pictures from Pixabay — CC0 · Jonathan Cardy — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jonathan Cardy — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Luca Bezzi — CC BY-SA 4.0
Dmanisi is two sites in one: the ruins of a medieval trading town and, beneath them, the earliest well-dated fossils of early humans found in Eurasia, about 1.8 million years old. Run by the Georgian National Museum, it crowns a promontory above the Mashavera–Pinezauri confluence, and the hominin site has been on UNESCO's tentative list since 2007. The town rose as a caravan centre under the Arab emirate of Tbilisi in the 9th–10th centuries, and was still in Muslim hands when King David IV the Builder took it in 1123; its 13th–14th-century Arabic gravestones outnumber the Christian ones. In the early 1980s its storage pits yielded fossil animal bones, then a human jaw in 1991 and five skulls by 2005, named Homo georgicus in 2002 and now mostly seen as early Homo erectus. Paths cross the walled town, past stone-paved streets and ruined houses, to the citadel with its palace and bath remains. Just below the citadel stands Dmanisi Sioni, a working basilica traditionally dated to the 6th or 7th century, with a richly carved porch added in 1213–1222. Inside, cover shoulders and knees, and women cover their hair. A field museum at the dig, opened in 2009, shows the excavations. It lies by Patara Dmanisi, about 85 km south-west of Tbilisi by road, some two hours' drive. Open roughly May to October, it closes on Mondays. Paths are rough, steep in places and unshaded, with unfenced drops, so wear sturdy shoes. Dashbashi Canyon is 32 km away as the crow flies but nearly 80 km by road.
Where 1.8-million-year-old skulls emerged.
A basilica with a carved 13th-century porch.
Palace and bath ruins at the town's south end.
Near Patara Dmanisi village, Dmanisi municipality, Kvemo Kartli
Yes. Bolnisi Sioni, built in 478–493 and considered the oldest surviving church building in Georgia, lies about 15 km east as the crow flies, some 35 km by road, and many visitors from Tbilisi pair the two in one day.
They are the richest set of early human fossils from one site at so early a date: five skulls and about a hundred other bones from people some 145–166 cm tall, with brains of 545–775 cc, far smaller than ours. Their wide variation fed a debate on whether several early Homo species were really one.