Convenient Programs For Demystified

They were thought to be the first people to migrate out of Africa, making it all the way to Java, at the far end of Asia, as early as 1.6 million years ago. But as the bones and tools from Dmanisi accumulate, a different picture of the earliest migrants is emerging. By now, the fossils have made it clear that these pioneers were startlingly primitive, with small bodies about 1.5 meters tall, simple tools, and brains one-third to one-half the size of modern humans'. Some paleontologists believe they provide a better glimpse of the early, primitive forms of H. erectus than fragmentary African fossils. "I think for the first time, by virtue of the Dmanisi hominins, we have a solid hypothesis for the origin of H. erectus," says Rick Potts, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Short and small-brained, even compared with classic Homo erectus, the Dmanisi people or their immediate ancestors emerged from Africa and migrated thousands of kilometers into Asia. This fall, paleontologists converged in Georgia for "Dmanisi and beyond," a conference held in Tbilisi and at the site itself from 20–24 September. There researchers celebrated 25 years of discoveries, inspected a half-dozen pits riddled with unexcavated fossils, and debated a geographic puzzle: How did these primitive hominins—or their ancestors—manage to trek at least 6000 kilometers from sub-Saharan Africa to the Caucasus Mountains? "What was it that allowed them to move out of Africa without fire, without very large brains?

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