David Lordkipanidze

Georgian National Museum

Equus suessebornensis is one of the most intriguing species of the Early and Middle Pleistocene Eurasian Equus. Although it was described from the Middle Pleistocene site of Süssenborn, in recent years its biochronological correlation has been extended to the Early Pleistocene, raising a debate in the scientific community. In this contribution, we...

The Pliocene and Early Pleistocene three-toed horses of Western Eurasia (Caucasus, Anatolia, Balkans, Eastern and Central Europe, Italian and Iberian Peninsulas and England) have been studied since the second half of the 19th Century, leading to different interpretations of their taxonomy and evolution. Herein we provide a revision of the taxa from...

The Early Pleistocene site of Dmanisi is now well known for its large number of fossils of early Homo erectus as well as associated artifacts and faunal remains, recovered mainly in pipe-related geologic features. Testing in the M5 unit 100 m to the west of the main excavations revealed a thick stratigraphy with no evidence of pipes or gullies, ind...

The frontal sinuses are cavities inside the frontal bone located at the junction between the face and the cranial vault and close to the brain. Despite a long history of study, understanding of their origin and variation through evolution is limited. This work compares most hominin species’ holotypes and other key individuals with extant hominids....

There are many hypotheses regarding influences on the early hominin biogeographic spread into Eurasia; among them is increased meat-eating. Dmanisi in Georgia is one of the rare Early Pleistocene sites in Eurasia, and here we present primary information and analysis of the medium and large mammal taphonomy, contributing information about site forma...

The Pliocene and Early Pleistocene three-toed horses of Western Eurasia (Caucasus, Anatolia, Balkans, Eastern and Central Europe, Italian and Iberian peninsulae and England) have been studied since the second half of the 19th Century, with the following taxa identified from several fossiliferous sites: “Hipparion” crassum, “Hipparion” rocinantis, “...

Five well-preserved individuals from Dmanisi represent a paleodeme attributed to early Homo. Here we provide a case study of the D2280 adult cranium, which presents four oval-shaped lesions on the frontal, left parietal, and occipital bones. Several conditions are considered as possibly contributing to this pathology, including trauma, cysts, metas...

We undertake a comparative mammalian zoogeographic analysis with the aim of revealing the extent to which the Dmanisi Early Pleistocene large mammal assemblage resembles, at the genus level, African, Arabian, and Eurasian localities of similar age. The inclusion of Old World Pliocene and Pleistocene mammalian faunas provides us with insights into t...

Pliocene and earliest Pleistocene Northern Eurasian rhinocerotines are poorly documented and understudied in comparison to Pleistocene and Miocene ones. However, they represent a key-group of species for understanding the phylogeny and historical biogeography of their Pleistocene relatives. In the present paper, we revise the abundant material from...

The carnivore guild of the Early Pleistocene site of Dmanisi is among the most diverse of the Early Pleistocene of the entire Old World. It includes 14 carnivoran taxa: Homotherium latidens, Megantereon whitei, Panthera onca georgica, Acinonyx pardinensis, Lynx issiodorensis; Pachycrocuta brevirostris; Canis (Xenocyon) lycaonoides, Canis borjgali,...

The Global climate reorganisation in the late Pliocene linked to enhancement of the Atlantic Ocean Thermohaline Circulation (AOTC), instigated a transition to glacial-interglacial cyclicity in the Quaternary. Enhancement of the AOTC amplified atmospheric precipitation over the Eurasian interior strengthening Northern Hemisphere Glaciation. Increase...

The renowned site of Dmanisi in Georgia, southern Caucasus (ca. 1.8 Ma) yielded the earliest direct evidence of hominin presence out of Africa. In this paper, we report on the first record of a large-sized canid from this site, namely dentognathic remains, referable to a young adult individual that displays hypercarnivorous features (e.g., the redu...

The Equus datum has been established as a geochronologic 'instantaneous' migratory event of a North American Equus species into Eurasia at the beginning of the Pleistocene (2.58 Ma). A remarkable radiation of Equus followed across Eurasia and Africa. Dmanisi includes excellent remains of Equus, well calibrated between 1.85 and 1.76 Ma. Our morpholo...

Free download - Share Link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1d6d8AlZXMPNI Abstract_Rhinocerotidae represents a common element in the Eurasian Pleistocene faunas. Origin, dispersal route, and biochronology of several species are still poorly understood due to gaps in the fossil record, in particular from central Eurasia. A remarkable collection of r...

Cave sediments have been shown to preserve ancient DNA but so far have not yielded the genome-scale information of skeletal remains. We retrieved and analyzed human and mammalian nuclear and mitochondrial environmental “shotgun” genomes from a single 25,000-year-old Upper Paleolithic sediment sample from Satsurblia cave, western Georgia:first, a hu...

Brain evolution in early Homo Human brains are larger than and structurally different from the brains of the great apes. Ponce de León et al. explored the timing of the origins of the structurally modern human brain (see the Perspective by Beaudet). By comparing endocasts, representations of the inner surface of fossil brain cases, from early Homo...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

The renowned site of Dmanisi in Georgia, southern Caucasus (ca. 1.8 Ma) yielded the earliest direct evidence of hominin presence out of Africa. In this paper, we report the first record of a large-sized canid from this site, namely dentognathic remains, referable to a young adult individual that displays hypercarnivorous features (e.g., the reducti...

Archaeological sediments have been shown to preserve ancient DNA, but so far have not yielded genome-scale information of the magnitude of skeletal remains. We retrieved and analysed human and mammalian low-coverage nuclear and high-coverage mitochondrial genomes from Upper Palaeolithic sediments from Satsurblia cave, western Georgia, dated to 25,0...

The Near East and the Caucasus are commonly regarded as the original domestication centres of Vitis vinifera (grapevine), and the region continues to be home to a high diversity of wild and cultivated grapevines, particularly within Georgia. The earliest chemical evidence for wine making was recorded in Georgian Neolithic sites (6000–5800 bc) and g...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Equus stenonis is one of the most prevalent European Pleistocene fossil horses. It is believed to be the possible ancestor of all Old World Early Pleistocene Equus, extant zebras and asses, and as such provides insights into Equus evolution and its biogeography and paleoecology. The Equus stenonis holotype skull (IGF560) was first described by Igin...

This study addresses the roles of biotic agents in site formation in the B1 strata of Block 2 at Dmanisi, Georgia, using theoretical and analogous frameworks for the interpretation of spatial behaviors of carnivores and hominins. For this study, stone material, faunal remains, and coprolites are analyzed to determine if any spatially distinct behav...

In the complex scenario of Plio–Pleistocene mammalian faunal turnovers, recent research on canids has revealed an increasingly higher number of species than previously thought. In this framework, Georgia had a key role in the biogeographic dispersion of fauna from/to Asia, Africa, and Europe. Historically attributed to Canis etruscus, the rich Cani...

The phylogenetic relationships between hominins of the Early Pleistocene epoch in Eurasia, such as Homo antecessor, and hominins that appear later in the fossil record during the Middle Pleistocene epoch, such as Homo sapiens, are highly debated1–5. For the oldest remains, the molecular study of these relationships is hindered by the degradation of...

Sediments of Lake Paravani, the largest natural lake in the South Caucasus, were analysed to reconstruct the millennial history of the environment. Pollen analysis, previously undertaken on the first core retrieved in the middle of the lake, revealed a vegetation history for the last 12 millennia. As part of the present study, a new core was taken...

The present paper provides brief preliminary research of new Chalcolithic materials discovered at Bronze cave, Tsutskhvati cave complex.

The locality of Udabno, Georgia, preserves material referred to the hominoid primate Dryopithecus. In this study, we describe the microvertebrate fauna from the site, which includes fishes (Scardinius sp., Carassius sp.), anurans (Pelophylax sp.), squamates (Lacertidae indet., Ophidia indet.), insectivores (Schizogalerix sinapensis, Turiasorex cf....

We report on the taxonomy and paleodiet of the bear population that inhabited the emblematic palaeoanthropological Early Pleistocene (1.8 Ma) site of Dmanisi (Georgia), based on a dual approach combining morphometrics and microwear of upper and lower teeth. Given that the teeth of Ursus etruscus Cuvier, 1823 from Dmanisi show considerable size vari...

Recent paleoanthropological evidence from the early Pleistocene site of Dmanisi in Georgia has revealed that the first hominins out of Africa were more archaic than the coeval African Homo erectus. Therefore, anatomical or cultural innovations associated with the later species cannot be invoked as a cause for the first out of Africa. More evidence...

The Pontocaspian (Black Sea - Caspian Sea) region has a very dynamic history of basin development and biotic evolution. The region is the remnant of a once vast Paratethys Sea. It contains some of the best Eurasian geological records of tectonic, climatic and paleoenvironmental change. The Pliocene-Quaternary co-evolution of the Black Sea-Caspian S...

The sequencing of ancient DNA has enabled the reconstruction of speciation, migration and admixture events for extinct taxa¹. However, the irreversible post-mortem degradation² of ancient DNA has so far limited its recovery—outside permafrost areas—to specimens that are not older than approximately 0.5 million years (Myr)³. By contrast, tandem mass...

This communication will provide the latest information about the progress of the “Research Project for the Study of Georgian Grapes and Wine Culture”, managed by the National Wine Agency of Georgia since 2014. Local and foreign institutions continue to work together with the aim of stimulating multidisciplinary scientific research activity on Georg...

Objectives There is continuing controversy over the number of taxa documented by the Dmanisi hominins. Variation may reflect age and sex differences within a single population. Alternatively, two (or more) distinct species may be present. Our null hypothesis states that just one population is represented at the site. Materials and methods We asses...

Our excavations of the site of Dmanisi, Georgia, bring new knowledge about the evolutionary history of early Homo. Over the past decade, this site has yielded a treasure of a unique series of 1.8‐million‐year‐old cranial and postcranial hominin fossils, along with many well‐preserved animal fossils and quantities of primitive stone artifacts. This...

The earliest ancient DNA data of modern humans from Europe dates to ~40 thousand years ago, but that from the Caucasus and the Near East to only ~14 thousand years ago, from populations who lived long after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) ~26.5-19 thousand years ago. To address this imbalance and to better understand the relationship of Europeans an...

Ancient DNA (aDNA) sequencing has enabled unprecedented reconstruction of speciation, migration, and admixture events for extinct taxa. Outside the permafrost, however, irreversible aDNA post-mortem degradation has so far limited aDNA recovery within the ~0.5 million years (Ma) time range. Tandem mass spectrometry (MS)-based collagen type I (COL1)...

The microvertebrate record of Udabno includes fishes (Scardinius sp., Carassius sp.) anourans (Pelophylax sp.), squamates (Lacertidae indet., Ophidia indet.), insectivores (Schizogalerix sp., cf. Turiasorex pierremeini) and rodents (Byzantinia pikermiensis, Hansdebruijnia erksinae, Vasseuromys pannonicus). The rodent association of the cricetid Byz...

This is the figure in the article Bukhsinidze M., Chagelishvili R., Lordkipanidze D. "Late Miocene vertebrate site of Chachuna (Iori valley, Georgia, Southern Caucasus)" Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, in press

This is the figure for the paper: Bukhsianidze M., Chagelishvili R., Lordkipanidze D. (2018) Late Miocene vertebrate site of Chachuna (Iori valley, Georgia, Southern Caucasus). Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences (in press).

From 2015 the Kuwait-Georgian Archaeological Mission carried out archaeological research in the continental part of Kuwait, at Bahra, As-Sabbiyah region. Three years of investigation have revealed very interesting cult complexes, the first of their kind in the region. One of them consists of two parts: a so-called "long structure" and a burial adja...

Chachuna (Gare Kakheti, Georgia) is one of the fossil vertebrate sites in the Kura foreland of the Eastern Paratethys, alongside the better known Upper Sarmatian s.l. (Khersonian) Eldari, Udabno and Iagludja (idem Rustavi) sites. We describe the geological setting of the Chachuna site and provide a preliminary list of vertebrate fauna. The site is...

Early Neolithic wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus

Significance The earliest biomolecular archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence for grape wine and viniculture from the Near East, ca. 6,000–5,800 BC during the early Neolithic Period, was obtained by applying state-of-the-art archaeological, archaeobotanical, climatic, and chemical methods to newly excavated materials from two sites in Georgia...

Unlike the Asian and North American Pliocene record, fossil occurrences of Canidae in Europe (and Africa) are uncommon and fragmentary. The revision of canid material from the late Pliocene site of Kvabebi (eastern Georgia) revealed the contemporaneous occurrence of three different taxa: (1) Nyctereutes megamastoides (a derived species of the Euras...

Recent paleoanthropological evidence from the early Pleistocene site of Dmanisi in Georgia has revealed that the first hominins out of Africa were more archaic than the coeval African and Asian Homo erectus. More evidence suggests that these archaic hominins were forest dwellers rather than savannah inhabitants. Between 1.8 and 1.6 million years ag...

A fifth hominin skull (cranium D4500 and mandible D2600) from Dmanisi is massively constructed, with a large face and a very small brain. Traits documented for the first time in a basal member of the Homo clade include the uniquely low ratio of endocranial volume to basicranial width, reduced vertex height, angular vault profile, smooth nasal sill...

The nature and timing of environmental changes throughout the last glacial-interglacial transition in the South Caucasus, and more widely in eastern Europe, are still not fully understood. According to certain pollen records, forest expansion occurred in many areas several millennia after what is considered worldwide as the onset of the Holocene. T...

The nature and timing of environmental changes throughout the last glacial-interglacial transition in the South Caucasus, and more widely in eastern Europe, are still not fully understood. According to certain pollen records, forest expansion occurred in many areas several millennia after what is considered worldwide as the onset of the Holocene. T...

In this chapter, we present the current status of our knowledge on the early history of the genus Homo. Ever since this genus was defined in 1776, issues concerning its definition and number of members of the genus have remained controversial. The evidence for our definition of Homo has, for the most part, come from human fossils found in Africa. H...

According to the agreement between the National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters of the State of Kuwait and the Georgian National Museum, archaeological investigations began on Failaka Island in March of 2011, and on the continental part of Kuwait in the As Sabbiya region. Failaka is situated 17 km off mainland Kuwait in the north of the Arab...

Humans, unlike African apes, have relatively robust fifth metatarsals (Mt5) presumably reflecting substantial weight-bearing and stability function in the lateral column of the former. When this morphological difference emerged during hominin evolution is debated. Here we investigate internal diaphyseal structure of Mt5s attributed to Australopithe...

In 2014, the National Wine Agency of the Republic of Georgia initiated a three-year “ResearchProject for the study of Georgian Grapes and Wine Culture. Through collaborative research by Georgianand foreign institutions and researchers, the project aims to: stimulate research of Georgian viticulture andviniculture, through the lens of the country wi...

Dental morphology and morphometrics of Upper Paleolithic human remains from Dzudzuana and Satsurblia caves, western Georgia

The late Pleistocene expansion of anatomically modern humans (AMHs) into Eurasia and the concurrent demise of the Neanderthals appears to be a complex and regionally variable process. The southern Caucasus region, with its rich cave-sites, has recently provided important results regarding this process. In this paper we report on the results of fiel...

The dispersal of Homo erectus out of Africa at some 1.9 million years ago is one of the most important, crucial, and yet controversial events in human evolution. Current opinions about this episode expose the contrast between those who see H. erectus as a highly social, cooperative species seeking out new ecological opportunities to exploit, and th...

Objectives: Due to the scarcity of the fossil record, in vivo changes in the dentognathic system of early Homo are typically documented at the level of individual fossil specimens, and it remains difficult to draw population-level inferences about dietary habits, diet-related activities and lifestyle from individual patterns of dentognathic altera...

The Samtskhe-Javakheti volcanic plateau (Republic of Georgia) is the northernmost and youngest expression of the magmatism following the Arabia-Eurasia collision. Here, we present whole rock elemental and twenty-one new unspiked K/Ar and 40Ar/39Ar ages for the volcanic sequence well exposed east of the plateau. Based on our new radio-isotopic ages,...

We extend the scope of European palaeogenomics by sequencing the genomes of Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,300 years old, 1.4-fold coverage) and Mesolithic (9,700 years old, 15.4-fold) males from western Georgia in the Caucasus and a Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,700 years old, 9.5-fold) male from Switzerland. While we detect Late Palaeolithic–Mesolithi...

This paper presents an overview of the work carried out over the last decade on the Middle Palaeolithic of Georgia by a Georgian-French team, co-directed by the national Museums of Georgia and France. Since 2000, the importance of several Middle Palaeolithic key sites in the Rioni-Kvririla Basin (western Georgia) has been highlighted by this collab...

Abstract Recent excavation at the site of Chobareti (1615 m a.s.l., South Caucasus Mountains) reveals an important Kura-Araxes settlement and eleven burials so far, for which a first multi-proxies approach was conducted to understand both exploitation of plants and human dietary practices in this mountainous area. Thanks to the excavation of severa...

The region of western Georgia (Imereti) has been a major geographic corridor for human migrations during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic (MP/UP). Knowledge of the MP and UP in this region, however, stems mostly from a small number of recent excavations at the sites of Ortvale Klde, Dzudzuana, Bondi, and Kotias Klde. These provide an absolute chro...

We present a detailed zooarchaeological and taphonomic study of Bondi Cave, western Georgia, containing Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic levels. The faunal assemblages are dominated by Caucasian tur (Capra caucasica) and European bison (Bison cf. bonasus). High proportions of specimens bearing cut marks and percussion marks indicate that hu...

Schwartz et al. hold that variation among the Dmanisi skulls reflects taxic diversity. The morphological observations to support their hypothesis, however, are partly incorrect, and not calibrated against intraspecific variation in living taxa. After proper adjustment, Schwartz et al.’s data are fully compatible with the hypothesis of a single pale...

The site of Dmanisi, Georgia, has yielded an impressive sample of hominid cranial and postcranial remains, documenting the presence of Homo outside Africa around 1.8 million years ago. Here we report on a new cranium from Dmanisi (D4500) that, together with its mandible (D2600), represents the world's first completely preserved adult hominid skull...

Significance The mandibles of the early Pleistocene hominins from Dmanisi, Georgia, exhibit wide morphological variation, but the causes of diversity remain largely unknown. Here we quantify the effects of heavy tooth wear and wear-related bone remodeling on mandibular variation. Using modern hunter–gatherer populations as a reference, we show that...

Here we present a palynological and sedimentological record from a 96-cm sediment core covering the last 13 ka aiming to document palaeoecological changes in the central South Caucasus driven by climate and/or human impact. The core was retrieved from Lake Paravani (2073 m asl, 41°27′N, 43°48′E), located in the steppic grasslands of South Caucasus...

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Hipparion fauna is of major importance for dating the Neogene fossil-bearing sediments. There are a number of sites with Hipparion fauna in the Southern Caucasus. Out of them only two are dated as Upper Sarmatian: Eldari (Azerbaijan) and Iaghludja (Georgia). Fossil bearing Sarmatian sediments were recently found in Kaspi district, Georgia. Fossil f...

The Bondi Cave sequence A new sequence containing human remains from a previously unstudied cave, Bondi Cave, has been discovered in Georgia, with deposits dating to the Caucasian Upper Pleistocene. This site lies in the basin of Rioni-Kvirila Rivers, in the Imereti region of north-western Georgia. The site has yielded a long sequence with human oc...

Reconstructions of foraging behavior and diet are central to our understanding of fossil hominin ecology and evolution. Current hypotheses for the evolution of the genus Homo invoke a change in foraging behavior to include higher quality foods. Recent microwear texture analyses of fossil hominin teeth have suggested that the evolution of Homo erect...

The Kvemo-Orozmani locality contains a 15 m thick Early Pleistocene fluvio-lacustrine sequence bracketed by two lava flows. Located 13 km up the Masavera River Valley (west) from the Dmanisi Site, Kvemo-Orozmani is therefore of prime interest to improve the paleoecological framework as well as dating Dmanisi. 40Ar/39Ar ages obtained on the two lava...

The early Pleistocene colonization of temperate Eurasia by Homo erectus was not only a significant biogeographic event but also a major evolutionary threshold. Dmanisi's rich collection of hominin fossils, revealing a population that was small-brained with both primitive and derived skeletal traits, has been dated to the earliest Upper Matuyama chr...