A two-million-year-old human tooth was found in Georgia
Archaeologists in Georgia have found a 1.8-million-year-old tooth belonging to an early race of humans, which they say strengthens the belief that the area was home to one of the oldest prehistoric human settlements in Europe, and possibly outside Africa in general.
The tooth was discovered near the village of Uruzmani, about 100 kilometers southwest of the Georgian capital Tbilisi, near Dmanisi where 1.8 million-year-old human skulls were found, in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Dmanisi's discoveries were the oldest of their kind anywhere in the world outside of Africa, and changed scientists' understanding of human evolution and early migration patterns.
Experts said the latest discovery at a site 20 km away provides more evidence that the mountainous South Caucasus region was likely one of the first places where early humans settled after migrating from Africa.
"Urosmani, along with Dmanisi, represent the oldest distribution center for early humans - or Homo - in the world outside of Africa," the National Research Center for Archeology and Prehistory in Georgia said while announcing the tooth's discovery yesterday.
"The results, not only for this site, but for Georgia and the story of humans who left Africa 1.8 million years ago, are enormous," said Jack Burt, a British archeology student who found the tooth in Uruzmani.
"This reinforces Georgia's position as a really important place for anthropology and the human story in general," he told Reuters.
The oldest Homo fossils from anywhere in the world date back about 2.8 million years, and are part of a jaw unearthed in what is now Ethiopia.
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